California’s Circus Cruelty Protection Act

As for the debate about circuses, an old friend of mine worked as a stage hand for Ringling for a year or two and I got to see their holding areas after their show when they were in my city. (I did not see the show itself). The conditions are what I would describe as deplorable. There were five female Asian elephants as I recall, each was separated from the other (though within sight), each was chained to a pole with hay on the cement convention center floor and a hotwire barrier around. The dozen or so tigers were all in small rolling cages and this is how they lived. I had not been to the circus since I was a child but after seeing this I would never support circuses with animals.

 

I've been meaning to write a longer post about this subject but I haven't had time. I've been behind the scenes at circuses as well (multiple times) and it looked very different from this.

 

...Care to elabourate which ones and provide photos if you will?

Anyway, what really bothers me is that animals like llamas and camels are included in the bill. The problem? Those species have long been domesticated to the point they are their own species separate from wild ones, so its like trying to ban cats and dogs (which depending on your view are also separate species) from appearing in stage shows.

EDIT: I do, however, would not like camels being used in Christmas Naivity scenes, for reasons I can't discuss any further to avoid flame wars.

 

I'll get to that in my longer post when I finally have time to type it out. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos.

 

Immediately after the successful change of this bill SB313 in the California Senate, animal extremists have gotten an equally damaging bill HR1380 in the California House of Representatives. Misleadingly labeled "Big Cat Public Safety Act" it aims to prevent private facilities from importing new cats. Information is from Cat Haven's Facebook page and they are asking Californians to contact the House of Representatives to express their disapproval.

 

Isn't the Big Cat Public Safety Act aimed at the federal level?