AR-News: US NM) Animal rights protesters object to circus

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Clovis News Journal
By Darrell Todd Maurina: CNJ staff writer
darrell_maurina at link.freedom.com 
Visitors to the Carson & Barnes 5-Ring Circus got an unexpected sight at the 
gate Monday night — a woman pretending to use a bull hook to beat her 
daughter, who was dressed up as a circus elephant. Three other women held protest 
signs. 
“Until animal acts are out of circuses the violence will not stop,” protest 
organizer and Clovis resident Christina Dryden said. “Any circus that has 
animal acts presents animal cruelty. The animals are held captive, forced to do 
shows. That is not what elephants are supposed to be doing.” 
Riene Wyatt, the mother with the bull hook, objected to the training methods 
used in circuses. 
“The means they use to train these animals are horrific,” Wyatt said. “
Bullhooks, blowtorches and worse.” 
The circus held two shows in Clovis Monday night. The circus will have shows 
in Las Vegas, N.M., tonight. 
Joe Frisco III, a third-generation elephant trainer with the circus, said the 
protesters don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t worked 
with the animals. 
“You’re not going to get a 10,000-pound animal to do anything it doesn’t 
want to do,” Frisco said. “Animals at this circus come first. In the wild every 
day they are hunted for their trunks, killed because the population is too big 
and there is no room for them.” 
Dryden, who said she is a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of 
Animals, said they received a mixed reaction from circus patrons as they passed out 
literature to people entering the gates. 






full story:

 
http://cnjonline.com/engine.pl?station=clovis&template=storyfull.html&id=5568 


 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040413/07038f88/attachment.html