In today's age of virtual reality video games and cable television programs that can transport children practically anywhere on Earth, a small piece of past remains.
And it can be found under the Big Top.
The Cenla Shrine Circus has entertained Cenla residents for more than five decades.
Acrobats, daredevil stunts, jugglers, clowns, trapeze artists, elephants and lions will put on their version of the greatest show on Earth this weekend at the Rapides Parish Coliseum.
The Cenla Shriners host the annual Shrine Circus in an effort to support their club activities and the services provided by the Shriners Hospital for Children in Shreveport.
The history of the Cenla Shrine Circus dates back to the early 1930s. At that time, the annual event was held at Bringhurst Field in Alexandria. The circus acts took place under huge striped tents and were a main attraction for thousands.
Local resident Jodie White recalls the excitement of the circus.
"I remember being there in the middle of it all," he said. "We would talk about the circus at school for weeks before it came to town."
Back then, the circus would arrive by train, usually in the middle of the night. Anyone who knew about it could see a trail of equipment and animals coming through town.
Dan Lemoine, who lived in Alexandria at the time, remembers waking up at 4 a.m. to watch the pre-dawn procession of elephants pulling the circus wagons.
"My cousin would come to spend the night and we would speculate what was inside of each wagon," Lemoine said. "If you listened carefully, you could hear a lion roar or maybe a gorilla pounding his chest."
Guy E. Humphries Jr., past president of the Cenla Shriners, also remembers the early days of the circus at Bringhurst.
"Would you believe in all those years, not one performance was ever rained out?" he said.
As the years passed, the circus eventually moved to the Rapides Coliseum where it is still held today. Although it changed locations, one constant remains -- the Cenla Shriners' long-standing pledge to provide medical care to children who have orthopedic conditions or to those who suffer from burn injuries.
Cracker Jacks will be sold during the intermission following the traditional ceremony to recognize a Shriners Hospital patient.
All proceeds from Cracker Jacks sales go to the transportation fund to help offset the costs of transferring patients to and from the Shriners hospital.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Circus Time in Chehalis - This Might Be Last Run for Carson and Barnes’ Three Ring Event
By Eric Schwartz
The Chronicle
The Carson and Barnes Circus arrived in Chehalis Thursday for a two-day stint at the Southwest Washington Events Center at the Yard Birds Mall.
Hailing itself as the “World’s Largest Tent Circus,” the venue can seat up to 2,000 people and requires more than 100 employees and performers to operate. For the cost of $8 for children and $16 for adults, attendees get a nearly two hour show of traditional circus favorites. Showtimes will take place today at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Part-time clown and full time marketing representative Doug Munsell said the show is a traditional circus featuring classic performances that audiences have come to expect.
Along with an array of animals like elephants, horses, and dancing poodles, the circus is anchored by performances from people representing 12 different countries. Russia, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, Argentina and Brazil are just a handful of the countries represented, Munsell said.
The show is highlighted by the high-wire, elephants, trapeze, motorcycles, a contortionist, clowns and hula hoop girls.
Outside the main tent, children will find a petting zoo complete with a pygmy hippopotamus, goats, burros and other animals. Those looking for a more personal experience can pay to ride an elephant or camel.
Chehalis residents have the opportunity to see an ever-shrinking attraction up close and personal, said Munsell.
Munsell said this might be the final year of the three-ring circus as economic factors have hit his business as hard as anyone else’s. In the future, he said the circus might shrink to a single ring.
“This is all we can afford anymore,” Munsell said, pointing to three elephants under a tent and noting that the circus can only afford the gas to transport three at a time. “It was more impressive when we had 18.”
The arrival of the circus was preceded by a letter to the Chehalis city council from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals alleging that Carson and Barnes often abuses its elephants with electronic prods and bullhooks. Circus representatives deny the claim, but Munsell said that employees have become accustomed to frequent protests by PETA.
Two protesters showed up at a recent show in Kennewick, but Munsell said the circus is used to the distraction by now. PETA has been protesting the group for several years, though Carson and Barnes say that a video used to support their claim has been falsified.
“We pretty much expect it,” Munsell said. “It actually gives us big publicity.”
...
Eric Schwartz covers municipal government and health for The Chronicle. He may be reached at 807-8245.
The Chronicle
The Carson and Barnes Circus arrived in Chehalis Thursday for a two-day stint at the Southwest Washington Events Center at the Yard Birds Mall.
Hailing itself as the “World’s Largest Tent Circus,” the venue can seat up to 2,000 people and requires more than 100 employees and performers to operate. For the cost of $8 for children and $16 for adults, attendees get a nearly two hour show of traditional circus favorites. Showtimes will take place today at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Part-time clown and full time marketing representative Doug Munsell said the show is a traditional circus featuring classic performances that audiences have come to expect.
Along with an array of animals like elephants, horses, and dancing poodles, the circus is anchored by performances from people representing 12 different countries. Russia, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, Argentina and Brazil are just a handful of the countries represented, Munsell said.
The show is highlighted by the high-wire, elephants, trapeze, motorcycles, a contortionist, clowns and hula hoop girls.
Outside the main tent, children will find a petting zoo complete with a pygmy hippopotamus, goats, burros and other animals. Those looking for a more personal experience can pay to ride an elephant or camel.
Chehalis residents have the opportunity to see an ever-shrinking attraction up close and personal, said Munsell.
Munsell said this might be the final year of the three-ring circus as economic factors have hit his business as hard as anyone else’s. In the future, he said the circus might shrink to a single ring.
“This is all we can afford anymore,” Munsell said, pointing to three elephants under a tent and noting that the circus can only afford the gas to transport three at a time. “It was more impressive when we had 18.”
The arrival of the circus was preceded by a letter to the Chehalis city council from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals alleging that Carson and Barnes often abuses its elephants with electronic prods and bullhooks. Circus representatives deny the claim, but Munsell said that employees have become accustomed to frequent protests by PETA.
Two protesters showed up at a recent show in Kennewick, but Munsell said the circus is used to the distraction by now. PETA has been protesting the group for several years, though Carson and Barnes say that a video used to support their claim has been falsified.
“We pretty much expect it,” Munsell said. “It actually gives us big publicity.”
...
Eric Schwartz covers municipal government and health for The Chronicle. He may be reached at 807-8245.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Jenny The Elephant Will Remain At Dallas Zoo
"I'm very glad they decided not to send her to this "sanctuary" in TN. I would hate to see another elephant waste way there.
Logan"
"I'm really glad thatThe Dallas Zoo announced Wednesday that the distraught elephant Jenny was not moving to Mexico anymore, to the relief of the activists who were against the idea.
The zoo thought better and decided the 10,000-pound pachyderm would remain at her home of 22 years and would also get a new companion, which might help end her depression.
“We believe we have found a solution that benefits Jenny as well as the Dallas community,” the zoo’s executive director, Gregg Hudson, said Wednesday in a statement. “This plan serves Jenny’s best interests.”
Mr. Hudson first decided to send the elephant, who suffered from depression panic attacks, to the Africam Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico, after her companion, Keke, died of heart disease in the month of May.
As African elephants are very sensitive when it comes to their companions’ death, it was feared that Jenny’s health was endangered.
But Mr.Hudson’s good intentions were not well received by many, including local residents, animal-rights advocates, lawmakers and elephant experts. The critics said that the noisy zoo in Puebla might actually worsen Jenny’s state and trigger her rages. They requested that the elephant is sent to a 2,700-acre sanctuary for traumatized circus and zoo elephants in Tennessee. But this plan was not welcomed by Dallas Zoo officials and a national umbrella organization that accredits zoos in North America. The zoo officials argued that the Tennessee elephant sanctuary was not accredited by the zoo association, which meant that Jenny might not be provided with proper care.
But now Mr. Hudson came with a better plan, promising to speed up the construction of a new 15-acre habitat for large African mammals and also to find a new companion for Jenny.
Logan"
"I'm really glad thatThe Dallas Zoo announced Wednesday that the distraught elephant Jenny was not moving to Mexico anymore, to the relief of the activists who were against the idea.
The zoo thought better and decided the 10,000-pound pachyderm would remain at her home of 22 years and would also get a new companion, which might help end her depression.
“We believe we have found a solution that benefits Jenny as well as the Dallas community,” the zoo’s executive director, Gregg Hudson, said Wednesday in a statement. “This plan serves Jenny’s best interests.”
Mr. Hudson first decided to send the elephant, who suffered from depression panic attacks, to the Africam Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico, after her companion, Keke, died of heart disease in the month of May.
As African elephants are very sensitive when it comes to their companions’ death, it was feared that Jenny’s health was endangered.
But Mr.Hudson’s good intentions were not well received by many, including local residents, animal-rights advocates, lawmakers and elephant experts. The critics said that the noisy zoo in Puebla might actually worsen Jenny’s state and trigger her rages. They requested that the elephant is sent to a 2,700-acre sanctuary for traumatized circus and zoo elephants in Tennessee. But this plan was not welcomed by Dallas Zoo officials and a national umbrella organization that accredits zoos in North America. The zoo officials argued that the Tennessee elephant sanctuary was not accredited by the zoo association, which meant that Jenny might not be provided with proper care.
But now Mr. Hudson came with a better plan, promising to speed up the construction of a new 15-acre habitat for large African mammals and also to find a new companion for Jenny.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Rescuer's hope turns to heartbreak - Kay Rosaire
By Carol E. Lee
Published: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 12:46 a.m.
Dane showed her feisty side at first. The caged 250-pound African lioness spread her jaw, displaying her lethal teeth. Unfazed, her caretakers rubbed her soft face and patted her back.
Dane then revealed her other side. She licked one of them, like a puppy, and let a veterinarian stick a needle into her left hind leg. Within minutes, Dane's eyes drooped. Her tongue stuck out, and her head slowly fell to the floor. She was under.
One of 11 lions at Big Cat Habitat and Gulf Coast Sanctuary in Sarasota County, an anesthetized Dane then underwent four hours of tests Tuesday to diagnose the cause of her paralyzed back legs.
She went down, as they say, about 10 days ago. She could not get up on her hind legs, and struggled on her front ones.
Ollo, another Big Cat lioness, went down last spring, but was back to her old self after going under the knife of Dr. Anne Chauvet at Veterinary Neuro Services LLC. Dane's five-person entourage, including the closest thing she ever had to a mother, Big Cat founder Kay Rosaire, figured Dane had the same condition as Ollo: a herniated disc.
Rosaire had the usual concerns of a loved one in a waiting room, but she was confident Dane would be back home that night, like Ollo was.
"It's like having your kid go into surgery," she said, pacing outside the small room in Chauvet's office where Dane lay on an X-ray table atop a pink quilt.
Rosaire took in Dane and her sister, Reba, nine years ago when they were cubs. Dane was just shy of her first birthday. Before coming to Rosaire, Dane was used to pose in photographs for tourists. Rosaire refused to say where.
"I can't divulge or I'll never get another cat," she said.
The worst of these big cat equivalents to puppy mills, Rosaire said, inbreed the lions and briefly use the cubs for calendar photographs or as tourist attractions. These cubs, like Dane, are prone to illness and can have genetic problems.
"She was so thin at one point when she was not well that she looked like a dog," Rosaire said. "So I named her Dane."
A former lion trainer and the eighth generation of a circus family, Rosaire spent hours hand-feeding Dane and her sister, Reba. The lionesses have since been inseparable, sharing a cage, eating together, playing together.
It was only the third time that Chauvet had worked on a lion. The surgery would have cost Rosaire $6,000, but Chauvet treats the nonprofit's exotic animals for free.
She climbed on Dane's back and stretched open her jaw to insert a tube. Her assistants shaved Dane's paws and prepped her with intravenous needles and more anesthesia. For four hours Chauvet took countless X-rays and injected fluid into Dane's spine to help with diagnosis.
They were right. Dane had a herniated disc.
But on the last X-ray Chauvet found something else. Bone cancer. It had eaten away at Dane's right shoulder. The lioness had compensated by leaning on her hind legs, which gave her the herniated disk.
With tears in her eyes, Rosaire agreed to do the unimaginable.
Chauvet's assistants removed the needles from Dane's legs and took her off the anesthesia. Chauvet injected 35 cubic centimeters of barbiturates into Dane's left paw. She got a stethoscope and checked Dane's heart.
"She's gone," she said.
Rosaire refused to watch. She sat, tissue in hand, on a sofa in the waiting room near the coffee pot and foam cups.
"Your heart just hurts," she said. "Now we've just got to worry about her sister. They're very close."
This story appeared in print on page BN1
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Educators Urge Lower Drinking Age to Cut Bingeing
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; Page B03
Scores of college presidents, including the head of Maryland's public university system and the president of Johns Hopkins University, have an unexpected request for legislators: Please, lower the drinking age.
The Amethyst Initiative, launched in July, is a coalition of college presidents who say that the legal drinking age of 21 encourages binge drinking on campuses. William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, William Brody, president of Johns Hopkins, C.D. Mote Jr. of the University of Maryland and the presidents of Washington and Lee, Sweet Briar, Towson, Randolph-Macon, Duke, Tufts, Dartmouth and others have signed on to the effort.
It is likely to be difficult politically to change the drinking age, which has been 21 since the mid-1980s.
In a survey released yesterday by Nationwide Insurance, which is hosting a symposium on binge drinking in Washington in November with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 75 percent of adults said they support tougher enforcement of existing drinking laws.
In Maryland, the House drug and alcohol committee chairman called on local colleges to not take part
"Far more teens die in alcohol-related incidents than [in those caused by] all the other illicit drugs combined," said Del. William A. Bronrott (D-Montgomery), who co-founded the Washington Regional Alcohol Program, which fights drunken driving and underage drinking. "Lowering the drinking age to 18 will only make the situation worse."
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 20, 2008; Page B03
Scores of college presidents, including the head of Maryland's public university system and the president of Johns Hopkins University, have an unexpected request for legislators: Please, lower the drinking age.
The Amethyst Initiative, launched in July, is a coalition of college presidents who say that the legal drinking age of 21 encourages binge drinking on campuses. William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, William Brody, president of Johns Hopkins, C.D. Mote Jr. of the University of Maryland and the presidents of Washington and Lee, Sweet Briar, Towson, Randolph-Macon, Duke, Tufts, Dartmouth and others have signed on to the effort.
It is likely to be difficult politically to change the drinking age, which has been 21 since the mid-1980s.
In a survey released yesterday by Nationwide Insurance, which is hosting a symposium on binge drinking in Washington in November with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 75 percent of adults said they support tougher enforcement of existing drinking laws.
In Maryland, the House drug and alcohol committee chairman called on local colleges to not take part
"Far more teens die in alcohol-related incidents than [in those caused by] all the other illicit drugs combined," said Del. William A. Bronrott (D-Montgomery), who co-founded the Washington Regional Alcohol Program, which fights drunken driving and underage drinking. "Lowering the drinking age to 18 will only make the situation worse."
Me In A Former Life
This is me as Olga Hess the Headless Woman. Thanks Bob for not making me do this on Lewis and Clark. haha
Ringling bridge remains Ringling
Sarasota vote undoes one renaming it Waters
STAFF REPORT
Published: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Monday, August 18, 2008 at
11:44 p.m.
SARASOTA - The city's signature John Ringling Causeway bridge keeps its name, but will have commemorative plaques on it honoring activist Gil Waters, under a resolution adopted by city commissioners on Monday.
The commission's action also undoes a previous vote, which would have named the bridge after Waters. It was Waters who advocated the construction of a fixed-span bridge to replace the old drawbridge that had been named after the circus impresario who built it.
Waters championed building a new bridge tall enough for sailboats to pass under, and organized the Good Bridge 2000 group that lobbied state and local officials for years.
Both the city and state legislators who represent Sarasota wanted to recognize Waters' efforts, but there was confusion over whether they would do it with a plaque, or by renaming the bridge altogether.
City commissioners voted last month to rename the bridge after Waters -- and fielded dozens of complaints from people who were surprised by the change and angry that the public did not have a chance to discuss it before the vote.
Commissioners said Monday it was their intent all along to adopt a plaque. And Waters accepted the offer, insisting only that the plaque include a line giving appreciation to the hundreds of supporters who rallied for it.
Waters said Monday that the fight for the bridge and the tussle over the renaming were classic examples of local civics.
"That has been the story of Sarasota," Waters said. "Nothing is simple and you have to fight for what you feel is right. And it's a treasure that was worth the fight."
This story appeared in print on page BN1
STAFF REPORT
Published: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Monday, August 18, 2008 at
11:44 p.m.
SARASOTA - The city's signature John Ringling Causeway bridge keeps its name, but will have commemorative plaques on it honoring activist Gil Waters, under a resolution adopted by city commissioners on Monday.
The commission's action also undoes a previous vote, which would have named the bridge after Waters. It was Waters who advocated the construction of a fixed-span bridge to replace the old drawbridge that had been named after the circus impresario who built it.
Waters championed building a new bridge tall enough for sailboats to pass under, and organized the Good Bridge 2000 group that lobbied state and local officials for years.
Both the city and state legislators who represent Sarasota wanted to recognize Waters' efforts, but there was confusion over whether they would do it with a plaque, or by renaming the bridge altogether.
City commissioners voted last month to rename the bridge after Waters -- and fielded dozens of complaints from people who were surprised by the change and angry that the public did not have a chance to discuss it before the vote.
Commissioners said Monday it was their intent all along to adopt a plaque. And Waters accepted the offer, insisting only that the plaque include a line giving appreciation to the hundreds of supporters who rallied for it.
Waters said Monday that the fight for the bridge and the tussle over the renaming were classic examples of local civics.
"That has been the story of Sarasota," Waters said. "Nothing is simple and you have to fight for what you feel is right. And it's a treasure that was worth the fight."
This story appeared in print on page BN1
He Ran Away to Join the Circus . . . And Now He’s Stuck in an AT&T Park Parking Lot
Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 06:59:59 AM
Former lion tamer forced to sit by the dock of the bay, waste time.
By Joe Eskenazi
Ted McRae has no fixed address, and drives his “Land Yacht” motor home around the nation 44 weeks a year. His tortoiseshell cat, Jad, is planted on the floor of his cozy, wood-paneled home on wheels, as sedentary as McRae is mobile. But today neither man nor cat is going anywhere.
McRae, the ringmaster at Circus Vargas, had put the Land Yacht into gear and headed out with the convoy of fellow performers who had been living in an RV village on a dusty lot across from AT&T Park for the week. But the yacht had other plans. “My motor home started smoking,” recalled McRae as he pulled a Marlboro out of the box and proceeded to do the same. “A policeman told me if where I was coming from was closer than where I was headed to take it back.”
So while the rest of the circus is setting up shop in Hayward, McRae spent all of Monday biding his time in the desolate Mission Bay parking lot, awaiting a tow to a San Leandro mechanic. “It’s always something. Sometimes it’s major and sometimes it’s minor. Hopefully, this one will be in-between.”
McRae, who is 50, takes a drag on his cigarette and reflects on this unusual life he leads. His wife, Renee, lives in the RV with him, and his two younger boys, Jordan and Dorian, live in a trailer he pulls on road trips. They’re 18 and 16, respectively; both take courses via the Florida Virtual School and ride unicycles and juggle for the big show. McRae’s oldest son, Adrian, is a 22-year-old lighting technician for Ringling Brothers – “I think he’s in Hidalgo, Texas right now,” says Dad.
Unlike many of his Circus Vargas colleagues, McRae wasn’t exactly born into a circus family. In 1994 he had a job driving a forklift at a paint warehouse when he got a late-night phone call from his cousin. The cousin, it seems, had founded a circus. He had a lion and tiger man, but the cats didn’t exactly take to the chap. Would McRae like to jump in the cage? “I said ‘Heck yeah!’” recalls McRae with a laugh. “Actually, I said I’d have to talk to my wife, but she said she’d always liked circuses so let’s go. Later that month I was in the cage with four lions on one side of me and three tigers on the other.”
When asked what experience he had in the field of lion-taming, McRae noted that he’d always liked animals. As for his qualifications, he’s still alive, isn’t he?
Circus Vargas does not feature any animals that could, say, induce mayhem if they escaped from the local zoo. McRae has a large snake that he does an act with, and others do a dog act –- the crowd under the big top is led to believe a mad-wild bull will be running out of a chute and a few Boston Terriers with horns fastened to their heads come sprinting out. That’s always good for a laugh.
As the sun dips below Bernal Heights and the parking lot turns cold, the life of a traveling circus performer is looking about as romantic as a Lombard Street motel. McRae, however, is, quite literally, a happy camper.
“Circus life is cool. We have our own little community and we travel around from place to place,” he says, stubbing out his cigarette. “If you’ve gotta do something, this ain’t bad.”
Former lion tamer forced to sit by the dock of the bay, waste time.
By Joe Eskenazi
Ted McRae has no fixed address, and drives his “Land Yacht” motor home around the nation 44 weeks a year. His tortoiseshell cat, Jad, is planted on the floor of his cozy, wood-paneled home on wheels, as sedentary as McRae is mobile. But today neither man nor cat is going anywhere.
McRae, the ringmaster at Circus Vargas, had put the Land Yacht into gear and headed out with the convoy of fellow performers who had been living in an RV village on a dusty lot across from AT&T Park for the week. But the yacht had other plans. “My motor home started smoking,” recalled McRae as he pulled a Marlboro out of the box and proceeded to do the same. “A policeman told me if where I was coming from was closer than where I was headed to take it back.”
So while the rest of the circus is setting up shop in Hayward, McRae spent all of Monday biding his time in the desolate Mission Bay parking lot, awaiting a tow to a San Leandro mechanic. “It’s always something. Sometimes it’s major and sometimes it’s minor. Hopefully, this one will be in-between.”
McRae, who is 50, takes a drag on his cigarette and reflects on this unusual life he leads. His wife, Renee, lives in the RV with him, and his two younger boys, Jordan and Dorian, live in a trailer he pulls on road trips. They’re 18 and 16, respectively; both take courses via the Florida Virtual School and ride unicycles and juggle for the big show. McRae’s oldest son, Adrian, is a 22-year-old lighting technician for Ringling Brothers – “I think he’s in Hidalgo, Texas right now,” says Dad.
Unlike many of his Circus Vargas colleagues, McRae wasn’t exactly born into a circus family. In 1994 he had a job driving a forklift at a paint warehouse when he got a late-night phone call from his cousin. The cousin, it seems, had founded a circus. He had a lion and tiger man, but the cats didn’t exactly take to the chap. Would McRae like to jump in the cage? “I said ‘Heck yeah!’” recalls McRae with a laugh. “Actually, I said I’d have to talk to my wife, but she said she’d always liked circuses so let’s go. Later that month I was in the cage with four lions on one side of me and three tigers on the other.”
When asked what experience he had in the field of lion-taming, McRae noted that he’d always liked animals. As for his qualifications, he’s still alive, isn’t he?
Circus Vargas does not feature any animals that could, say, induce mayhem if they escaped from the local zoo. McRae has a large snake that he does an act with, and others do a dog act –- the crowd under the big top is led to believe a mad-wild bull will be running out of a chute and a few Boston Terriers with horns fastened to their heads come sprinting out. That’s always good for a laugh.
As the sun dips below Bernal Heights and the parking lot turns cold, the life of a traveling circus performer is looking about as romantic as a Lombard Street motel. McRae, however, is, quite literally, a happy camper.
“Circus life is cool. We have our own little community and we travel around from place to place,” he says, stubbing out his cigarette. “If you’ve gotta do something, this ain’t bad.”
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Circus Animals Website
I have been thinking about builiding a pro-animal website for the circus industry for some time now. I think one is crucial if we are going to win this battle. From my experience most circus protestors get their information from PETA's infamous circuses.com so if we had something to rival that site where people could get information for the studies done on circus animals and see photos and videos of circus animals interacting with their trainers the tides might start to change. I am willingy to donate the money and time for the project but I will need and want help from others within the industry. What are your thoughts? If you don't want to post comments here you can send me an e-mail at contort08@yahoo.com
Take care,
Logan
Take care,
Logan
The biggest little stars under Cirque du Soleil's big top
Nancy Tousley, Calgary HeraldPublished: Saturday, August 16, 2008
When The Clowness held aloft by transparent, helium balloons floats out over the audience in Cirque du Soleil's Corteo, the first thing Valentyna Paylevanyan feels is she is taller than anybody.
The second thing she feels is she is really, physically flying, an ancient human desire the 3'6" strawberry-blond circus artist, who weighs 21 kilos and wears a harness under her 18th-century-style costume, easily fulfils.
She seems almost lighter than air and her in-air delight is infectious. She enchants the audience. We are told, when the balloons begin to drift gently downward, we can touch her to send her flying upwards again. Hands reach up as she slowly descends to push up on the soles of her little pointed-toe shoes.
When the efforts are feeble, she playfully chides: "Come on. What's going on? Help me. PUSH!" When she rises, she squeals with pleasure. She enjoys the act, Helium Dance, just as much as the audience.
It is a high point of the show, and Valentyna is in control. She can change direction by leaning this way and that. The amount of helium in the balloons (Calgary's high altitude requires seven instead of the usual six) is exactly calculated to keep her from flying too high. She trusts her fellow performers and the crew, absolutely.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
When The Clowness held aloft by transparent, helium balloons floats out over the audience in Cirque du Soleil's Corteo, the first thing Valentyna Paylevanyan feels is she is taller than anybody.
The second thing she feels is she is really, physically flying, an ancient human desire the 3'6" strawberry-blond circus artist, who weighs 21 kilos and wears a harness under her 18th-century-style costume, easily fulfils.
She seems almost lighter than air and her in-air delight is infectious. She enchants the audience. We are told, when the balloons begin to drift gently downward, we can touch her to send her flying upwards again. Hands reach up as she slowly descends to push up on the soles of her little pointed-toe shoes.
When the efforts are feeble, she playfully chides: "Come on. What's going on? Help me. PUSH!" When she rises, she squeals with pleasure. She enjoys the act, Helium Dance, just as much as the audience.
It is a high point of the show, and Valentyna is in control. She can change direction by leaning this way and that. The amount of helium in the balloons (Calgary's high altitude requires seven instead of the usual six) is exactly calculated to keep her from flying too high. She trusts her fellow performers and the crew, absolutely.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Reward offered in firebombings of UC researchers
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 08/04/2008 02:50:45 PM PDT
SANTA CRUZ, Calif.—Authorities are offering a $30,000 reward as police hunt for suspects in the weekend firebombing of a university scientist's house and the torching of another researcher's car.
Santa Cruz police Chief Howard Skerry said Monday that investigators discovered "significant forensic evidence" at the scenes of both bombings but offered no information about possible suspects.
Skerry said half the reward money was donated by the University of California, Santa Cruz, where the researchers work.
The rest of the money was contributed by federal authorities, Santa Cruz residents and the U.S. Humane Society.
The bombings early Saturday came days after police obtained threatening pamphlets targeting UC Santa Cruz biomedical researchers who experiment on animals.
———
Information from: Santa Cruz Sentinel, http://www.santacruzsentinel.com
Article Launched: 08/04/2008 02:50:45 PM PDT
SANTA CRUZ, Calif.—Authorities are offering a $30,000 reward as police hunt for suspects in the weekend firebombing of a university scientist's house and the torching of another researcher's car.
Santa Cruz police Chief Howard Skerry said Monday that investigators discovered "significant forensic evidence" at the scenes of both bombings but offered no information about possible suspects.
Skerry said half the reward money was donated by the University of California, Santa Cruz, where the researchers work.
The rest of the money was contributed by federal authorities, Santa Cruz residents and the U.S. Humane Society.
The bombings early Saturday came days after police obtained threatening pamphlets targeting UC Santa Cruz biomedical researchers who experiment on animals.
———
Information from: Santa Cruz Sentinel, http://www.santacruzsentinel.com
7 Things You Didn't Know About PETA
7 Things You Didn't Know About PETA
1) PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no wool, no leather, no hunting, no fishing, and no pets (not even seeing-eye dogs). PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals.
2) Despite its constant moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, PETA has killed over 14,400 dogs and cats at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. During 2005, PETA put to death over 90 percent of the animals it collected from members of the public.
3) PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing recommendation, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. And PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich told an animal rights convention in 2001 that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation.”
4) PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, often waiting outside their schools to intercept them as they walk to and from class-without notifying parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 2 million children every year, including thousands reached by e-mail without the permission of their parents. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”
5) PETA has used a related organization, the PETA Foundation, to fund the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a deceptive animal rights group that promotes itself as an unbiased source of medical and nutritional information. PCRM's president also serves as president of the PETA Foundation.
6) PETA runs campaigns seemingly calculated to offend religious believers. One entire PETA website is devoted to the claim-despite ample evidence to the contrary-that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn't be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.
7) PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, because they support animal-based research that might uncover cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.”
1) PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no wool, no leather, no hunting, no fishing, and no pets (not even seeing-eye dogs). PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals.
2) Despite its constant moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, PETA has killed over 14,400 dogs and cats at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. During 2005, PETA put to death over 90 percent of the animals it collected from members of the public.
3) PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing recommendation, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. And PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich told an animal rights convention in 2001 that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation.”
4) PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, often waiting outside their schools to intercept them as they walk to and from class-without notifying parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 2 million children every year, including thousands reached by e-mail without the permission of their parents. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”
5) PETA has used a related organization, the PETA Foundation, to fund the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a deceptive animal rights group that promotes itself as an unbiased source of medical and nutritional information. PCRM's president also serves as president of the PETA Foundation.
6) PETA runs campaigns seemingly calculated to offend religious believers. One entire PETA website is devoted to the claim-despite ample evidence to the contrary-that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn't be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.
7) PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, because they support animal-based research that might uncover cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.”
Friday, August 15, 2008
Big Top Circus Coming to Cozad - Culpepper and Merriweather
Thanks to the sponsorship of Cozad Chamber of Commerce, Culpepper & Merriweather Circus, America's Favorite Big Top Circus is coming to Cozad on August 19th 2008 at 24th & O Street across from Meadowlark Pointe with two scheduled performances at 5:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. In its 21st season, C&M Circus has become internationally known for quality family entertainment. This authentic One-Ring, Big Top Circus has been featured on National Geographic's Explorer TV series, Entertainment Tonight, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Arizona Highways Magazine. It has also been featured on the A&E Special: Under the Big Top and most recently, On the Road with Circus Kids, a Nickelodeon special featured on the Nick News Program.
This year the circus is proud to present Skeeter as the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus Advance Clown. Skeeter will be in town Wednesday, August 13th. She might be seen in stores, walking down Meridian Street at 2:00 p.m. she will be on 8th & Meridian handing out the official 2006 Culpepper & Merriweather Circus Coloring Contest sheets. The Cozad Chamber of Commerce will be handing out free Cozad balloons.
Skeeter got her clown start at the early age of 9 years old in Columbus, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Ringling Clown College and has spent much of the last 18 years traveling around the country - clowning around.
Skeeter's clown program educates students and community members about what a day in the life of a clown is really all about. She spends time talking about the different types of clowns and the history of the circus. Skeeter will delight audiences with her unique style of clowning, comedy and true love for the circus.
Bring your friends and family out circus morning to watch as a familiar place in your town is transformed into a bustling Circus City. Activity swirls around the grounds as animals are unloaded, the Big Top is erected, and rigging is prepared for performances later in the day. Enjoy the magic and tradition of the American Circus with your family and create memories that will last a lifetime.
Between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. watch the raising of the Big Top, then stay for the FREE Tour. This presentation offers a unique face-to-face opportunity for families, schools, and interested community members to meet and learn all about the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus family and includes a walking tour of the circus grounds. Learn interesting facts about our performers, the history of our show and the different species of animals in our Circus Family. In this presentation we will also address topics such as hygiene, grooming and the veterinary care all of our animals receive. It is presented in a way everyone, young and old can learn many interesting facts about the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus Family. This is a special part of Circus Day that should not be missed.
On circus day, our performers bring the magic of the circus to life in each 90-minute show. This year's lineup includes an All-Star group of performers and entertainers. Our performers are sure to amaze and delight audience members of all ages.
SAVE MONEY by purchasing your tickets in advance. Advance tickets are available at: Cozad Chamber of Commerce, Tri City Tribune, Sonny's Super Foods, Burkinks, Pizza Hut, and Runza. Prices for advance tickets are $6.00 for children ages 2 to 12, children under 2 are always free, and $8.00 for adults. Buy your tickets early and save.
For more information, please contact The Cozad Chamber of Commerce at 308-784-3930 or Tamie Thurn at 308-325-4305.
This year the circus is proud to present Skeeter as the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus Advance Clown. Skeeter will be in town Wednesday, August 13th. She might be seen in stores, walking down Meridian Street at 2:00 p.m. she will be on 8th & Meridian handing out the official 2006 Culpepper & Merriweather Circus Coloring Contest sheets. The Cozad Chamber of Commerce will be handing out free Cozad balloons.
Skeeter got her clown start at the early age of 9 years old in Columbus, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Ringling Clown College and has spent much of the last 18 years traveling around the country - clowning around.
Skeeter's clown program educates students and community members about what a day in the life of a clown is really all about. She spends time talking about the different types of clowns and the history of the circus. Skeeter will delight audiences with her unique style of clowning, comedy and true love for the circus.
Bring your friends and family out circus morning to watch as a familiar place in your town is transformed into a bustling Circus City. Activity swirls around the grounds as animals are unloaded, the Big Top is erected, and rigging is prepared for performances later in the day. Enjoy the magic and tradition of the American Circus with your family and create memories that will last a lifetime.
Between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. watch the raising of the Big Top, then stay for the FREE Tour. This presentation offers a unique face-to-face opportunity for families, schools, and interested community members to meet and learn all about the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus family and includes a walking tour of the circus grounds. Learn interesting facts about our performers, the history of our show and the different species of animals in our Circus Family. In this presentation we will also address topics such as hygiene, grooming and the veterinary care all of our animals receive. It is presented in a way everyone, young and old can learn many interesting facts about the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus Family. This is a special part of Circus Day that should not be missed.
On circus day, our performers bring the magic of the circus to life in each 90-minute show. This year's lineup includes an All-Star group of performers and entertainers. Our performers are sure to amaze and delight audience members of all ages.
SAVE MONEY by purchasing your tickets in advance. Advance tickets are available at: Cozad Chamber of Commerce, Tri City Tribune, Sonny's Super Foods, Burkinks, Pizza Hut, and Runza. Prices for advance tickets are $6.00 for children ages 2 to 12, children under 2 are always free, and $8.00 for adults. Buy your tickets early and save.
For more information, please contact The Cozad Chamber of Commerce at 308-784-3930 or Tamie Thurn at 308-325-4305.
One elephant case bumps another
By Steven T. Jones
The big Ringling Bros. elephant abuse trial that I wrote about in the current issue of the Guardian has been delayed by two weeks -- for a politically interesting reason.
Federal District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is hearing the Ringling Bros. case, is also presiding over the political corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has asked for a speedy trial to try to clear his name before the fall election, when he will try to continue as the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate. To accommodate the Stevens trial, Sullivan moved the Ringling trial start from Oct. 7 to Oct. 20. Apparently he wants to dispose of one elephant case before dealing with the next.
Meanwhile, also in a Washington D.C. court, another big Ringling-related lawsuit is moving forward. Superior Court Judge Brook Hedge yesterday ruled on motions for summary judgment in the strange case of journalist Jan Pottker vs. Ringling owner Ken Feld, which involves allegations of using former CIA operatives to sabotage Pottker's efforts to write about Feld. Judge Hedge granted motions removing National Press Books and other ancillary defendants from the case, but denied Feld's motion and will apparently allow the nine-year-old case to move toward trial.
"The filings are voluminous, but the core facts relevant to the claims are set forth above and revolve around the admitted plan to divert plaintiff from authoring any more works on the circus," the judge wrote in a 45-page opinion.
The big Ringling Bros. elephant abuse trial that I wrote about in the current issue of the Guardian has been delayed by two weeks -- for a politically interesting reason.
Federal District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is hearing the Ringling Bros. case, is also presiding over the political corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has asked for a speedy trial to try to clear his name before the fall election, when he will try to continue as the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate. To accommodate the Stevens trial, Sullivan moved the Ringling trial start from Oct. 7 to Oct. 20. Apparently he wants to dispose of one elephant case before dealing with the next.
Meanwhile, also in a Washington D.C. court, another big Ringling-related lawsuit is moving forward. Superior Court Judge Brook Hedge yesterday ruled on motions for summary judgment in the strange case of journalist Jan Pottker vs. Ringling owner Ken Feld, which involves allegations of using former CIA operatives to sabotage Pottker's efforts to write about Feld. Judge Hedge granted motions removing National Press Books and other ancillary defendants from the case, but denied Feld's motion and will apparently allow the nine-year-old case to move toward trial.
"The filings are voluminous, but the core facts relevant to the claims are set forth above and revolve around the admitted plan to divert plaintiff from authoring any more works on the circus," the judge wrote in a 45-page opinion.
Bigfoot press conference
August 16th, 2008 - 12:34 am ICT by David M N James
After a jamboree of pictures on the net which explicitly showed a jumbled mess of hair, entrails, water and the carcass of a supposed Bigfoot stuffed in a cooler was the hottest hype online and now, there is a Bigfoot press conference which will be on air. The press conference will be at noon today in Palo Alto and it will feature results from various tests, including one for DNA. The big-foot was discovered by two Georgian men on expedition in Mid July rousing a media circus. The two sported an insignia that donned them as Bigfoot trackers. According to the these two trackers, they retrieved the body from the woods and ferried it home and stuffed it in a cooler unit then reached an expert named Thomas Biscardi to have a look at their findings.
The Bigfoot press conference is being organized and manned by one police officer. He will be talking to Biscardi about the Bigfoot. This is scheduled at 3 pm, Eastern Time and police officer Matt Whitton, Biscardi, a California resident and former corrections officer Rick Dyer in Palo Alto will showcase the photographs and the DNA results of the Bigfoot testing. According to latest updates to Thaindian News, the DNA and the pictures will be evidence to credit the existence of the legendary man-ape found in north Georgia. Bigfoot was discovered by expeditioners Whitton and Dyer. It was seven-foot-seven, 550-pound corpse. However many want to disregard this story and are terming it as a big lie.
PETA Targets Circus Coming to Chehalis
By Eric SchwartzThe Chronicle
A long-standing feud between a circus and an animal rights organization will soon arrive in Chehalis.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has mailed a letter to the Chehalis City Council asking for the councilors to consider banning the use of “bullhooks, electric prods, and other devices commonly used to inflict pain on elephants.”
The request comes a week before the arrival of the Carson & Barnes Circus, which is scheduled to perform at the Southwest Washington Events Center at the Yard Birds Mall Aug. 21-22.
PETA, the world’s largest animal rights organization, has had its sights set on the circus for at least a decade. Its argument is buoyed by a film that appears to show hidden camera footage of a Carson & Barnes animal trainer abusing elephants and teaching others to do the same.
“An elephant’s ability to feel pain -- as well as sorrow, joy, and happiness -- rivals our own,” the letter reads. “In circuses, every instinct is subject to discipline and animals live a sad life of punishment and confinement. Elephants who reach for a blade of grass suffer a painful blow from a bullhook. A fumbled trick during the show often results in a beating.”
City officials said they had not received the letter as of Thursday afternoon. Chehalis’ next council meeting is not until Aug. 25, so it is unlikely a ban on such instruments will occur prior to the circus. City Manager Merlin MacReynold said he would limit his comments until the letter, accompanied by the video, arrives.
Still, MacReynold said it is always difficult to pass a wide-ranging ordinance that affects more than the targeted individual or business.
“As you know, those broad brush approaches to legislation often have impacts far beyond what people understand they have when they’re passed,” MacReynold said. “But I’d have to see the letter to know for sure what they are asking.”
Chehalis Mayor Tony Ketchum also had not seen the letter and accompanying video as of Tuesday. He said he has limited knowledge of PETA, but thinks animal rights groups often go too far.
“I know sometimes they can go overboard,” Ketchum said. “You can see the video, but even then, you don’t know the circumstances.”
Carson & Barnes Marketing Director Harry Dubsky said PETA is being less than honest in its tactics. He said the film in question is old, and Carson & Barnes does not use electric prods to control the 28 elephants it takes on tour.
Bullhooks, which are essentially long hooks attached to the end of a pole, are a necessity in the circus business, he said, but they are not used to inflict pain on the elephants.
The letter from PETA says bullhooks result in “pain, suffering, and trauma, including lacerations, puncture wounds and abscesses.” Dubsky countered that the hooks are not sharp, and rarely puncture the animal’s skin.
The letter from PETA says bullhooks result in “pain, suffering, and trauma, including lacerations, puncture wounds and abscesses.” Dubsky countered that the hooks are not sharp, and rarely puncture the animal’s skin.
“Bullhooks are the way of guiding,” he said. “It’s like as collar and a leash for a dog. ... You can’t put a collar and leash on an elephant.”
Additionally, Dubsky said the film used to criticize the circus is at least 10 years old, and that it has been “edited, chopped and voiced over.”
The circus’s elephants are treated well and are routinely inspected by an outside agency to ensure their health and happiness, Dubsky said.
Additionally, Dubsky said the film used to criticize the circus is at least 10 years old, and that it has been “edited, chopped and voiced over.”
The circus’s elephants are treated well and are routinely inspected by an outside agency to ensure their health and happiness, Dubsky said.
“When our elephants get sick, we almost sleep with them,” he said. “They are named after members of the family.”
PETA often protests at Carson & Barnes events, and Dubsky said that organizers provide the activists with a place to do so. He said PETA’s tactics often pass from simple letters to more dubious acts, like burning and spray painting trucks.
The circus is far from being the only organization to draw the ire of PETA. The group protests against Kentucky Fried Chicken and other fast-food restaurants, along with many other food processing businesses it feels has a poor track record on animal treatment.
“They’re fanatics in my mind,” Dubsky said. “Anyone who protests McDonalds has no place in my heart.”
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Eric Schwartz covers municipal government and health for The Chronicle. He may be reached at 807-8245.
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Eric Schwartz covers municipal government and health for The Chronicle. He may be reached at 807-8245.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
What to Do With Traumatized Elephant Stirs Up Dallas
By JAMES C. McKINLEY JR
Published: August 14, 2008
DALLAS — Jenny has had a hard life, even by elephant standards. She was orphaned at a tender age, stolen from Africa, shipped to America and sold to a circus, where a trainer notorious for his cruelty beat her to coerce her to perform.
When the Dallas Zoo took her in 22 years ago, she was a mess. For years, she suffered from depression and something like post-traumatic stress disorder, mutilating herself with her tusks, snapping steel cables, slamming her head into walls and requiring heavy medication.
Now, Jenny has become the focus of a boisterous debate about what to do with an aging elephant with a troubled mind. In May, after her latest companion died of heart failure, the zoo quietly made arrangements to send her to the Africam Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico, where she would be placed in a new five-acre exhibit with another female elephant.
But that decision sparked a firestorm in Dallas. Local protesters, world-renowned elephant experts and national animal rights groups are crusading to have her sent to a 2,700-acre sanctuary in Tennessee where 17 other traumatized elephants are kept in seclusion.
“Jenny is a special-needs elephant,” said Margaret Morin, a Dallas nurse who leads Concerned Citizens for Jenny. “She’s unique; she’s afflicted with crippling depression. The elephant sanctuary is the right choice.”
Beyond the debate about what to do with Jenny lies a national struggle between zoos and animal rights groups who, frankly, would rather see a world without elephant exhibits. The fight pits a loose coalition of elephant experts and animal rights advocates against the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a powerful private group based in Maryland that accredits zoos in North America.
Animal rights advocates have long argued that elephants in most zoos lack enough space and, as a consequence, suffer from foot ailments, arthritis and psychological problems.
For its part, the zoo association has clung to its traditions, saying the size of an enclosure matters less than the care elephants receive from zookeepers. It has also tried to keep the 300 elephants in its network of more than 78 zoos from being sent to sanctuaries, where the zoos could no longer use them for breeding.
All of a sudden, Jenny is at the center of this conflict.
The citizens’ group that Ms. Morin leads was formed this summer to hold protests in Dallas against sending Jenny to Mexico. Elephant experts across the country and national animal rights groups have also weighed in, urging that she be sent to the sanctuary. The City Council and The
Dallas Morning News have been inundated with letters.
The uproar has put the Dallas Zoo on the defensive. The director, Gregg Hudson, had said in June that sending Jenny to Mexico was a done deal, but now zoo officials are backpedaling.
Mayor Thomas C. Leppert, who could cancel the plan, has artfully ridden the fence. “There is really not a position to take yet,” Mr. Leppert said.
But a spokesman for the zoo, Sean Greene, said Africam Safari Park remained the zoo director’s top choice. Founded in 1972, the Mexican animal park uses the same hands-off, gentle handling techniques that the Dallas Zoo adopted in 1996, after one of Jenny’s worst periods. Indeed, keepers from Dallas helped train the Africam staff several years ago.
The Mexican zoo also plans to acquire another African elephant, to live with Jenny, as well as a bull elephant in the future.
But some Dallas residents say the zoo’s arguments do not hold up. The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., has 300 acres just for African elephants, and Jenny, who is 32, would be the fourth to arrive, said the founder, Carol Buckley. No one except the staff visits the animals, who range freely.
“Why would we want her last years to be in a drive-through zoo in Mexico when she could have 300 acres in the lush Tennessee countryside?” said Councilwoman Angela Hunt, who has visited both destinations.
Experts in the field say zoo directors are cliquish and tend to move animals to other zoos in their association rather than considering the benefits of a sanctuary, which many zoo officials see as part of an anti-zoo movement. The association can also make or break a zoo director’s career
“If we stripped everything away and say what is in the best interest of Jenny, the sanctuary would win hands down,” said Les Schobert, a retired curator of animals at the Los Angeles Zoo.
“But then you have to add in all the politics.”
Amy Camacho, general director of Africam, said the transfer seemed to make sense. Her park, which was recently accredited, was seeking African elephants to strengthen its collection, and the Dallas Zoo had a troubled elephant.
Mike Keele, a curator at the Oregon Zoo who is also chairman of the zoo association’s elephant
“species survival program,” signed off on the deal. “I like keeping these elephants within the A.Z.A. where they meet our standards,” Mr. Keele said. “Space is just a catchphrase. It’s what you do with that space.”
Nonsense, say animal rights advocates. No zoo or drive-through safari park can match the peace of the Tennessee countryside.
On a recent sunny afternoon, Jenny stripped branches tossed to her by one of her keepers, Gavin Eastep, who said that Jenny’s mental health had improved in recent years.
“Most of the time she’s pretty calm, pretty relaxed,” Mr. Eastep said.
On a bench facing the steel-cable enclosure, David and Heidi McGuire sat with their two children and marveled at Jenny’s size and the graceful swing of her slow gate. “I would rather her stay in the United States,” Heidi McGuire said. “You just never know what’s going to happen to them down in Mexico.”
Mr. McGuire, a grocer, said, “I hope they are going to get someone to replace her.”
Published: August 14, 2008
DALLAS — Jenny has had a hard life, even by elephant standards. She was orphaned at a tender age, stolen from Africa, shipped to America and sold to a circus, where a trainer notorious for his cruelty beat her to coerce her to perform.
When the Dallas Zoo took her in 22 years ago, she was a mess. For years, she suffered from depression and something like post-traumatic stress disorder, mutilating herself with her tusks, snapping steel cables, slamming her head into walls and requiring heavy medication.
Now, Jenny has become the focus of a boisterous debate about what to do with an aging elephant with a troubled mind. In May, after her latest companion died of heart failure, the zoo quietly made arrangements to send her to the Africam Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico, where she would be placed in a new five-acre exhibit with another female elephant.
But that decision sparked a firestorm in Dallas. Local protesters, world-renowned elephant experts and national animal rights groups are crusading to have her sent to a 2,700-acre sanctuary in Tennessee where 17 other traumatized elephants are kept in seclusion.
“Jenny is a special-needs elephant,” said Margaret Morin, a Dallas nurse who leads Concerned Citizens for Jenny. “She’s unique; she’s afflicted with crippling depression. The elephant sanctuary is the right choice.”
Beyond the debate about what to do with Jenny lies a national struggle between zoos and animal rights groups who, frankly, would rather see a world without elephant exhibits. The fight pits a loose coalition of elephant experts and animal rights advocates against the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a powerful private group based in Maryland that accredits zoos in North America.
Animal rights advocates have long argued that elephants in most zoos lack enough space and, as a consequence, suffer from foot ailments, arthritis and psychological problems.
For its part, the zoo association has clung to its traditions, saying the size of an enclosure matters less than the care elephants receive from zookeepers. It has also tried to keep the 300 elephants in its network of more than 78 zoos from being sent to sanctuaries, where the zoos could no longer use them for breeding.
All of a sudden, Jenny is at the center of this conflict.
The citizens’ group that Ms. Morin leads was formed this summer to hold protests in Dallas against sending Jenny to Mexico. Elephant experts across the country and national animal rights groups have also weighed in, urging that she be sent to the sanctuary. The City Council and The
Dallas Morning News have been inundated with letters.
The uproar has put the Dallas Zoo on the defensive. The director, Gregg Hudson, had said in June that sending Jenny to Mexico was a done deal, but now zoo officials are backpedaling.
Mayor Thomas C. Leppert, who could cancel the plan, has artfully ridden the fence. “There is really not a position to take yet,” Mr. Leppert said.
But a spokesman for the zoo, Sean Greene, said Africam Safari Park remained the zoo director’s top choice. Founded in 1972, the Mexican animal park uses the same hands-off, gentle handling techniques that the Dallas Zoo adopted in 1996, after one of Jenny’s worst periods. Indeed, keepers from Dallas helped train the Africam staff several years ago.
The Mexican zoo also plans to acquire another African elephant, to live with Jenny, as well as a bull elephant in the future.
But some Dallas residents say the zoo’s arguments do not hold up. The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., has 300 acres just for African elephants, and Jenny, who is 32, would be the fourth to arrive, said the founder, Carol Buckley. No one except the staff visits the animals, who range freely.
“Why would we want her last years to be in a drive-through zoo in Mexico when she could have 300 acres in the lush Tennessee countryside?” said Councilwoman Angela Hunt, who has visited both destinations.
Experts in the field say zoo directors are cliquish and tend to move animals to other zoos in their association rather than considering the benefits of a sanctuary, which many zoo officials see as part of an anti-zoo movement. The association can also make or break a zoo director’s career
“If we stripped everything away and say what is in the best interest of Jenny, the sanctuary would win hands down,” said Les Schobert, a retired curator of animals at the Los Angeles Zoo.
“But then you have to add in all the politics.”
Amy Camacho, general director of Africam, said the transfer seemed to make sense. Her park, which was recently accredited, was seeking African elephants to strengthen its collection, and the Dallas Zoo had a troubled elephant.
Mike Keele, a curator at the Oregon Zoo who is also chairman of the zoo association’s elephant
“species survival program,” signed off on the deal. “I like keeping these elephants within the A.Z.A. where they meet our standards,” Mr. Keele said. “Space is just a catchphrase. It’s what you do with that space.”
Nonsense, say animal rights advocates. No zoo or drive-through safari park can match the peace of the Tennessee countryside.
On a recent sunny afternoon, Jenny stripped branches tossed to her by one of her keepers, Gavin Eastep, who said that Jenny’s mental health had improved in recent years.
“Most of the time she’s pretty calm, pretty relaxed,” Mr. Eastep said.
On a bench facing the steel-cable enclosure, David and Heidi McGuire sat with their two children and marveled at Jenny’s size and the graceful swing of her slow gate. “I would rather her stay in the United States,” Heidi McGuire said. “You just never know what’s going to happen to them down in Mexico.”
Mr. McGuire, a grocer, said, “I hope they are going to get someone to replace her.”
Upgrading Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
RINGLING BROTHERS AND BARNUM & BAILEY BLEND TRADITIONAL, EYE-POPPING CUTTING EDGE
By Karen D'Souza Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/14/2008 10:19:38 AM PDT
The Greatest Show on Earth just got upgraded, people.
It seems elephants and tigers and clown cars just don't cut it anymore. (Oh, my.) Rap music, video screens and extreme acrobatic action are blowing the top off the big top at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus these days.
The 138th edition of the venerable circus is out to compete for your entertainment dollar in the age of Miley Cyrus and MySpace, and that means upping the ante on pop culture references, eye candy and spectacular feats of derring-do. The outrageous extravaganza roars into Oakland tonight for four days before swinging into San Jose on Wednesday for a five-day run.
"It's off the wall,'' says production manager Georgia Stephenson. "We've got all the elements of a traditional circus, but it's also got stuff even I've never seen before and I'm third-generation Ringling.''
There may be a sucker born every minute, as legendary showman P.T. Barnum is often credited with saying, but that does not mean the circus can afford to stick with old formulas in a new high-tech world. From rap music and Rihanna tunes to video images, the new show — called
"Over the Top'' — is pulling out all the stops to pop harder than ever before.
"It's the iPod generation, right?'' Stephenson says. "They've been quite clever about being modern and being high-tech."
"Over the Top'' lives up to its name, wooing audiences with a shorter running time, Cirque du Soleil-style contortionists and pop music. And let's not forget the animal open house where you can get your Doctor Dolittle on. You know, you can walk with the animals, talk with the animals. Basically this circus walks the tightrope between old school and cutting edge.
"The presentation of the show has definitely evolved,'' says ringmaster Chuck Wagner. "This is a grand American tradition, and we are proud of that. We stay true to those traditions, but the packaging of the show brings us into the 21st century. As the culture has changed, the circus has evolved.''
If you (like me) remember the circus as a longish affair that didn't end until little ones start to nod off into their cotton candy, think again. As master of ceremonies, Wagner keeps the pace tight, saying the whimsical two-hour show "flies by.'' Sometimes less is more.
"Back in the day there was a sideshow. That has fallen away. You used to have five rings, then there were three rings and now we play in an arena,'' Wagner says. "That ability to change makes the show vital.''
On the other hand, a bargain-hunting family looking for more bang for their entertainment buck can come early and check out the preshow (which runs an hour) and the animal encounter (30 minutes) and extend their circus experience for up to three hours and 45 minutes (including the intermission).
Grabbing generation text by the eyeballs also requires kicking the high-wire stunts up a notch. Daredevil antics come fast and hard here. There's the Torres family, who buzz seven motorcycles through a 16-foot-wide ball of steel. There's Super Silva, who walks upside down 40 feet in the air without a net. There are the two-tiered trapeze artists and the pole-vaulting acrobats. Not to mention random acts of pyrotechnics.
"These guys are fearless,'' Stephenson says. "When those acts are on, they have everybody's full attention. There's no room for error. I don't mean to be negative, but it's very dangerous. I've seen it 300 times, and every time it gets my full attention.''
Another sign of the times is the focus placed on sensitivity to animal needs. In the wake of animal abuse cases at large, circus folks say they go out of their way to prove that their animals get the star treatment.
"There are a lot of folks out there who have their hearts in the right place who have a misunderstanding,'' Wagner says. "These animals are well cared for. They're doted on.''
Indeed, as a prelude to the show, audiences are even invited to get up close and personal with the animals in the open house. Everyone is welcome to get a gander at the megaton Asian elephants and fuss over the fearsome Bengal Tigers.
"You can get very close to the elephants,'' says trainer Aaron Morris, a third-generation elephant expert. "There's just a small velvet rope between you and these amazing animals.''
It goes without saying that touching is not allowed on all of the animals. Only the goats and the alpacas get the full-on petting zoo treatment. (Does the Siegfried & Roy mauling ring a bell? 'Nuff said).
Admittedly, Morris may be a little biased, but he is quick to point out that, despite its love of digital gadgetry, today's audience still seems to get a blast out of the good, old-fashioned jumbo genre, i.e., watching an 11,000-pound pachyderm stomp the yard.
"Yes, times change, but whenever they do those questionnaires, everybody still says their favorite part of the show is the elephants.''
Mixing eye-popping awe with a dash of education on the need to save these majestic creatures from extinction may be what makes "Over the Top'' really hit the spot.
Contact Karen D'Souza at kdsouza@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3772. Check out her theater reviews, feature stories and blog at www.mercurynews.com/kdsouza
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey CircusWhere: Oracle Arena, off Interstate 880 at 66th Avenue in Oakland; HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose.When: Tonight-Sunday in Oakland; Wednesday-Aug. 24 in San JoseTickets: $15-$95; (510) 383-4581 or (408) 999-5805, www.ticketmaster.com
By Karen D'Souza Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/14/2008 10:19:38 AM PDT
The Greatest Show on Earth just got upgraded, people.
It seems elephants and tigers and clown cars just don't cut it anymore. (Oh, my.) Rap music, video screens and extreme acrobatic action are blowing the top off the big top at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus these days.
The 138th edition of the venerable circus is out to compete for your entertainment dollar in the age of Miley Cyrus and MySpace, and that means upping the ante on pop culture references, eye candy and spectacular feats of derring-do. The outrageous extravaganza roars into Oakland tonight for four days before swinging into San Jose on Wednesday for a five-day run.
"It's off the wall,'' says production manager Georgia Stephenson. "We've got all the elements of a traditional circus, but it's also got stuff even I've never seen before and I'm third-generation Ringling.''
There may be a sucker born every minute, as legendary showman P.T. Barnum is often credited with saying, but that does not mean the circus can afford to stick with old formulas in a new high-tech world. From rap music and Rihanna tunes to video images, the new show — called
"Over the Top'' — is pulling out all the stops to pop harder than ever before.
"It's the iPod generation, right?'' Stephenson says. "They've been quite clever about being modern and being high-tech."
"Over the Top'' lives up to its name, wooing audiences with a shorter running time, Cirque du Soleil-style contortionists and pop music. And let's not forget the animal open house where you can get your Doctor Dolittle on. You know, you can walk with the animals, talk with the animals. Basically this circus walks the tightrope between old school and cutting edge.
"The presentation of the show has definitely evolved,'' says ringmaster Chuck Wagner. "This is a grand American tradition, and we are proud of that. We stay true to those traditions, but the packaging of the show brings us into the 21st century. As the culture has changed, the circus has evolved.''
If you (like me) remember the circus as a longish affair that didn't end until little ones start to nod off into their cotton candy, think again. As master of ceremonies, Wagner keeps the pace tight, saying the whimsical two-hour show "flies by.'' Sometimes less is more.
"Back in the day there was a sideshow. That has fallen away. You used to have five rings, then there were three rings and now we play in an arena,'' Wagner says. "That ability to change makes the show vital.''
On the other hand, a bargain-hunting family looking for more bang for their entertainment buck can come early and check out the preshow (which runs an hour) and the animal encounter (30 minutes) and extend their circus experience for up to three hours and 45 minutes (including the intermission).
Grabbing generation text by the eyeballs also requires kicking the high-wire stunts up a notch. Daredevil antics come fast and hard here. There's the Torres family, who buzz seven motorcycles through a 16-foot-wide ball of steel. There's Super Silva, who walks upside down 40 feet in the air without a net. There are the two-tiered trapeze artists and the pole-vaulting acrobats. Not to mention random acts of pyrotechnics.
"These guys are fearless,'' Stephenson says. "When those acts are on, they have everybody's full attention. There's no room for error. I don't mean to be negative, but it's very dangerous. I've seen it 300 times, and every time it gets my full attention.''
Another sign of the times is the focus placed on sensitivity to animal needs. In the wake of animal abuse cases at large, circus folks say they go out of their way to prove that their animals get the star treatment.
"There are a lot of folks out there who have their hearts in the right place who have a misunderstanding,'' Wagner says. "These animals are well cared for. They're doted on.''
Indeed, as a prelude to the show, audiences are even invited to get up close and personal with the animals in the open house. Everyone is welcome to get a gander at the megaton Asian elephants and fuss over the fearsome Bengal Tigers.
"You can get very close to the elephants,'' says trainer Aaron Morris, a third-generation elephant expert. "There's just a small velvet rope between you and these amazing animals.''
It goes without saying that touching is not allowed on all of the animals. Only the goats and the alpacas get the full-on petting zoo treatment. (Does the Siegfried & Roy mauling ring a bell? 'Nuff said).
Admittedly, Morris may be a little biased, but he is quick to point out that, despite its love of digital gadgetry, today's audience still seems to get a blast out of the good, old-fashioned jumbo genre, i.e., watching an 11,000-pound pachyderm stomp the yard.
"Yes, times change, but whenever they do those questionnaires, everybody still says their favorite part of the show is the elephants.''
Mixing eye-popping awe with a dash of education on the need to save these majestic creatures from extinction may be what makes "Over the Top'' really hit the spot.
Contact Karen D'Souza at kdsouza@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3772. Check out her theater reviews, feature stories and blog at www.mercurynews.com/kdsouza
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey CircusWhere: Oracle Arena, off Interstate 880 at 66th Avenue in Oakland; HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose.When: Tonight-Sunday in Oakland; Wednesday-Aug. 24 in San JoseTickets: $15-$95; (510) 383-4581 or (408) 999-5805, www.ticketmaster.com
Living with the lions - Circus Pages
Quickly snapping her whip, circus performer Colleen Pages ordered felines twice her size around a steel cage as young spectators cheered and clapped from their seats at a safe distance.
What may sound like suicide is just another day at the office for Pages, a fifth generation performer traveling through Frankfort with her family's Circus Pages, which performed two shows at the Frankfort Convention Center Wednesday.
The circus is owned by Pages' grandparents and operated by her parents and several aunts and uncles.
Each year the family " based in Sarasota, Fla. " travels the eastern U.S. for nine months, performing between 300 and 500 shows, according to Pages.
"We go up and down the east coast," said Pages, 18. "We start from Florida, then work our way up to Michigan then slowly work our way back down."
Pages took over the big cat show this year after her sister left to perform with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
"It took my sister leaving for me to actually do it because her cats were already combined to her," Pages said.
The big cats develop a strong bond with their trainer, so strong the group had to buy new tigers when Pages took over.
"It'd be very awkward for a new person to come in and try and take over," she said. "My dad works with them but he worked with her for a long time."
Some may think working closely with large wild animals is crazy, but Pages said the job is no more dangerous than anything else, it just requires patience.
"It's basically a lot of patience, it's a lot of give and take," she said. "It has its ups and downs like everything else, you have to know when to stop."
"You've got to know when they're done. If they're irritated, if their tail's wagging, they're already done, they want to go home."
The animals - promoted as "trained but never tamed" - have good days and bad, much like people, Pages said.
"Sometimes they're ready, they're set, they're frisky, and then sometimes they're happy to be there, they don't want any trouble. It's just like people, some days you want to be at work some days you don't."
Caring for the animals is a nearly constant job for the family, according to Pages. Everyday chores such as cleaning cages, getting water, preparing meat and setting up fans for the animals keep the family busy, even on off days.
"With animals there's really basically never a day off, they come before you," Pages said.
Ordering around the royal African lions and white tigers isn't Pages only job. She also does an aerial act and stands in the "Ring of Death" as another performer circles around her on a motorbike.
Performing in a circus demands things a normal teenager would refuse in a second, but Pages enjoys traveling with her family and performing for crowds.
"I enjoy it, if you really like what you do you'll be happy," she said.
However, constant traveling and home schooling doesn't provide much time for a social life, something Pages admits she's missed.
"I missed out on the social life of having friends," she said. "I've had friends but I have more family, my family's closer to me than friends would be."
Someday she wants to study interior design in college, but she's unsure about leaving the circus.
"I don't know really, because it'd be hard to leave."
What may sound like suicide is just another day at the office for Pages, a fifth generation performer traveling through Frankfort with her family's Circus Pages, which performed two shows at the Frankfort Convention Center Wednesday.
The circus is owned by Pages' grandparents and operated by her parents and several aunts and uncles.
Each year the family " based in Sarasota, Fla. " travels the eastern U.S. for nine months, performing between 300 and 500 shows, according to Pages.
"We go up and down the east coast," said Pages, 18. "We start from Florida, then work our way up to Michigan then slowly work our way back down."
Pages took over the big cat show this year after her sister left to perform with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
"It took my sister leaving for me to actually do it because her cats were already combined to her," Pages said.
The big cats develop a strong bond with their trainer, so strong the group had to buy new tigers when Pages took over.
"It'd be very awkward for a new person to come in and try and take over," she said. "My dad works with them but he worked with her for a long time."
Some may think working closely with large wild animals is crazy, but Pages said the job is no more dangerous than anything else, it just requires patience.
"It's basically a lot of patience, it's a lot of give and take," she said. "It has its ups and downs like everything else, you have to know when to stop."
"You've got to know when they're done. If they're irritated, if their tail's wagging, they're already done, they want to go home."
The animals - promoted as "trained but never tamed" - have good days and bad, much like people, Pages said.
"Sometimes they're ready, they're set, they're frisky, and then sometimes they're happy to be there, they don't want any trouble. It's just like people, some days you want to be at work some days you don't."
Caring for the animals is a nearly constant job for the family, according to Pages. Everyday chores such as cleaning cages, getting water, preparing meat and setting up fans for the animals keep the family busy, even on off days.
"With animals there's really basically never a day off, they come before you," Pages said.
Ordering around the royal African lions and white tigers isn't Pages only job. She also does an aerial act and stands in the "Ring of Death" as another performer circles around her on a motorbike.
Performing in a circus demands things a normal teenager would refuse in a second, but Pages enjoys traveling with her family and performing for crowds.
"I enjoy it, if you really like what you do you'll be happy," she said.
However, constant traveling and home schooling doesn't provide much time for a social life, something Pages admits she's missed.
"I missed out on the social life of having friends," she said. "I've had friends but I have more family, my family's closer to me than friends would be."
Someday she wants to study interior design in college, but she's unsure about leaving the circus.
"I don't know really, because it'd be hard to leave."
Sea lions perform at fair
By Bennie Scarton Jr.
Published: August 13, 2008
Balancing, dancing and interacting with the audience, three sea lions have made a big splash at this year’s Prince William County Fair.
During each of the shows at the fair, Stella, Rose and Kim have been thrilling fairgoers as they perform in and out of the water, catching and retrieving objects, balancing, executing “handstands” and “singing” which, according to their trainer and show host Gala Rogacheva, “is all part of their naturally mischievous, comedic behavior.”
Stella is the largest of the three sea lions, weighing in at 250 pounds, while the other two come in at about 200 pounds.
The 30-minute show, which has been filling the bleachers daily, has an appeal to all ages. The show is geared around educating the audience on the habits and nature of the sea lions and it brings out the showmanship of the animals.
During each show, Surfer Joe (Carl Kruger), along with Rogacheva, helps put the aquatic creatures through their paces as they perform in and out of the water.
Rogacheva, 24, opens the show by telling the audience that the sea lions perform at their best when “fed fish” and hear a loud response from the stands.
She cautioned that sometimes the animals behave like a 3-year old child, getting stubborn and refusing to perform, “but that doesn’t happen often.” The jokesters have tons of personality and love to show off their special tricks and talent such as balancing a beach ball on their nose and tossing back a Frisbee.
“[They] will leap right into your heart,” Rogacheva said.
Rogacheva has found the Manassas audience “to be among the best” of all the shows she has done in the past two years.
“The response during the shows had been great and all ages of people have come up after the shows and asked interesting questions,”’ she said. The audience can have a photo taken with one of the animals as each show wraps up, having a close encounter with a sea lion — even getting a big hug or a wet kiss.
The idea for the sea lion show was established when Marco and Kathi Peters began adopting and providing a permanent home for beached sea lions who were unable to be returned to the wild due to age or injuries. Because many of these injuries were direct effects of human carelessness, the couple decided to educate the public on the plight of these incredible marine mammals and how humans need to coexist together in harmony. So, they took their show on the road.
Thus began the journey of the Sea Lion Splash, which travels all over North America entertaining thousands of people each year with their unique show. As the only traveling sea lion show (there are three of them on the road at the same time), the company, Squalus Inc. of Myakka City, Fla., ensures that the sea lions have more square foot of water per animal in the show than most sea lions have in public zoos. They eat up to 60 pounds of fish a day, with herring being their favorite.
“The animal’s welfare is always a priority as their transportation and show layout is designed specifically for the animals comfort. They travel in a air-conditioned unit, and two 13,000 gallon tanks were filled for them at the fairgrounds,” said Rogacheva, the daughter of two circus performers — her mother, Olga, an animal trailer, and her father, Oleg, a juggler. Both are now retired. She can serve as host in three languages — English, Spanish and Russian. The show is on the road from June through mid-November.
The local shows are conducted in the Kids’ Zone with daily performances at 6 and 8:30 p.m. and Saturday at 3:30, 6 and 8:30 p.m.
“Sea lions are natural performers and will ad lib without prompting, stealing the show with their cute mischief,” Rogacheva said.
Cypress Cirque
Bringing Gardens to Life
Cypress Cirque Filled With Contortionists, Mimes and Comedy
STEVE WEBB
Ledger Correspondent
Published: Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 7:32 p.m.
Outside the Royal Palm Theater at Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, a brightly dressed gardener and butterfly collector greets visitors and encourages them to enter the theater's air-conditioned comfort.
Come show time, he strides inside, greets his audience again, and a curtain rises to reveal a three-figure topiary vaguely reminiscent of the ones at the theme park's Topiary Trail. He sprinkles sparkling dust on the three topes and they magically come to life to perform a mixture of tumbling, ballet, mime, contortions and physical comedy.
In it, Alena Gergay uses rings to simulate a plant's stalk growing upward and its leaves stretching out. A contortionist uses her body to depict the unfolding blossoms of a flower. Sergay Sergeev is the cascading growth of a series of vines as he tumbles across the stage.
Or not. Maybe Gergay's rings or the contortions suggest the metamorphosis of a chrysalis to a butterfly or Sergeev's movement is that of a stream with a waterfall. Only their impresario/waterer really knows.
The brightly dressed gardener Commedia Bottanica - "please don't call him a clown; it has a scary connotation in America" - is a creation of Iouri Kreis, a Moscow-born and educated circus performer and talent agent who has lived in Winter Haven since performing in a circus acrobatics troup called The Akishins' "Variety Internationale" show in the pavilion at Cypress Gardens, when it was operated by Busch Entertainment Corporation.
Today, he leads the four-person Cypress Cirque troupe there.
Cypress Cirque's half-hour show at the Royal Palm continues Thursdays through Sundays through Labor Day, after which the troupe will shift to street performances around the park and mount a holiday-themed show at the Royal Palm in November. (For details about Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, see page 20 or visit www.cypressgardens.com.)
For Kreis, who has worked for Disney parks and Universal Orlando since the Akishins' show closed in 1994, it is a return to working at the place that drew him to emigrate from Russia and ultimately settle in Winter Haven, where he owns a home about a half mile from the park.
"I had performed here when Mr. Busch owned Cypress Gardens," he says. "So when the park's managers wanted me to contract a group to perform as part of New Year's Eve, I was excited about coming back. And when what we did was well enough received that one of the managers said it would be good if what we did could be presented as a show in the theater, I quickly said, 'I have an idea.'"
His perspective working for the larger parks had kicked in.
"Universal has its film stars. Disney has Mickey Mouse. Cypress Gardens needs someone to express who it is."
That someone is Commedia, a cirque ringmaster who presents his performers in the context of the gardens' signature nature themes. The troupe consists of father and daughter Sergeev and Alena Sergay; Odentuya Munkhbold, Uugantuya Otgonbayar and Khongorzul Tseyenoidov, three Mongolian contortionists who alternate performances among them.
"It is a European-style cirque set in old Florida," Kreis says.
Cypress Cirque Filled With Contortionists, Mimes and Comedy
STEVE WEBB
Ledger Correspondent
Published: Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 7:32 p.m.
Outside the Royal Palm Theater at Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, a brightly dressed gardener and butterfly collector greets visitors and encourages them to enter the theater's air-conditioned comfort.
Come show time, he strides inside, greets his audience again, and a curtain rises to reveal a three-figure topiary vaguely reminiscent of the ones at the theme park's Topiary Trail. He sprinkles sparkling dust on the three topes and they magically come to life to perform a mixture of tumbling, ballet, mime, contortions and physical comedy.
In it, Alena Gergay uses rings to simulate a plant's stalk growing upward and its leaves stretching out. A contortionist uses her body to depict the unfolding blossoms of a flower. Sergay Sergeev is the cascading growth of a series of vines as he tumbles across the stage.
Or not. Maybe Gergay's rings or the contortions suggest the metamorphosis of a chrysalis to a butterfly or Sergeev's movement is that of a stream with a waterfall. Only their impresario/waterer really knows.
The brightly dressed gardener Commedia Bottanica - "please don't call him a clown; it has a scary connotation in America" - is a creation of Iouri Kreis, a Moscow-born and educated circus performer and talent agent who has lived in Winter Haven since performing in a circus acrobatics troup called The Akishins' "Variety Internationale" show in the pavilion at Cypress Gardens, when it was operated by Busch Entertainment Corporation.
Today, he leads the four-person Cypress Cirque troupe there.
Cypress Cirque's half-hour show at the Royal Palm continues Thursdays through Sundays through Labor Day, after which the troupe will shift to street performances around the park and mount a holiday-themed show at the Royal Palm in November. (For details about Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, see page 20 or visit www.cypressgardens.com.)
For Kreis, who has worked for Disney parks and Universal Orlando since the Akishins' show closed in 1994, it is a return to working at the place that drew him to emigrate from Russia and ultimately settle in Winter Haven, where he owns a home about a half mile from the park.
"I had performed here when Mr. Busch owned Cypress Gardens," he says. "So when the park's managers wanted me to contract a group to perform as part of New Year's Eve, I was excited about coming back. And when what we did was well enough received that one of the managers said it would be good if what we did could be presented as a show in the theater, I quickly said, 'I have an idea.'"
His perspective working for the larger parks had kicked in.
"Universal has its film stars. Disney has Mickey Mouse. Cypress Gardens needs someone to express who it is."
That someone is Commedia, a cirque ringmaster who presents his performers in the context of the gardens' signature nature themes. The troupe consists of father and daughter Sergeev and Alena Sergay; Odentuya Munkhbold, Uugantuya Otgonbayar and Khongorzul Tseyenoidov, three Mongolian contortionists who alternate performances among them.
"It is a European-style cirque set in old Florida," Kreis says.
Zerbini Circus Wows Fair
Family circus wows fair attendees
By LORI LAW • Correspondent • August 14, 2008
ZANESVILLE - Amid the games and rides of the midway, the tempting treats of the concessions and the exhibits, shows and competitions, there is a surprise waiting at the Muskingum County Fair under a very big tent.
The Zerbini Family Circus puts on two laugh and gasp filled shows daily under the big top at the west end of the fairgrounds. With acts including acrobats, jugglers, clowns and circus animals, the surprise is that the circus is free with admission to the fairgrounds.
"The Zerbini Family Circus really emphasizes family," said Fair Board President Darrel Cubbison "The whole family can come."
The tradition of the circus and Zanesville began in the 1800s, according to Cubbison, when people would line the streets to watch the circus train unload. Variety Attractions brought the Zerbini Family Circus, to the Muskingum County Fair this year. If the standing-room-only crowd under the big tent for Wednesday's afternoon show was any indication, Cubbison said, "Zanesville has always been a town that loves the circus."
Melody Ramiraz has spent the last 11 years as the ringmaster for the Zerbini Family Circus.
"This is the eighth generation we have owned the circus. We are all family-owned and operated so everyone has their job. It took us about three hours to set up and it will take us 45 minutes to tear down," Ramiraz said.
She said the circus is the oldest form of family entertainment and the family prides itself on the wholesome nature of the show.
"There's something for everyone. There are thrills, chills and laughs. There are animals and pretty girls doing all their different acts. It's an amazing family show," Ramiraz said.
Having come in Sunday night from New Jersey, the circus was ready for its first performance Monday afternoon. Ramiraz said that the family circus is on the road so much that she cannot remember where they will be heading next with all the performers and their big tent and menagerie of rescued animal performers.
"We have aerialists, acrobats, jugglers, hand balancing clowns, and performing animals. We have stars from South America, Mexico and Europe. All of our animals are rescued animals. We don't have any wild or endangered animals. We work so much that I don't have any idea where we will perform next. It's a fun life," she said.
On her grandfather's shoulders, Mylee Chambers sported her own clown make-up and couldn't take her eyes off of the action inside the big top.
"It's a good family outing to get together and do something together," Mike Chambers said.
The family wore matching T-shirts supporting a nephew in a singing competition later in the day,
"We are looking forward to that, too," Chambers said.
Jay Swingle, 10, said that he came into the circus because, "They have a lot of cool stuff and it looked like a cool thing to come and watch."
Clapping along with the clowns, Jeannie Thompson caught the end of the show Tuesday night and decided to come back and catch the rest of it Wednesday.
Asked about the best part of the circus, Thompson said "All of it. It's just a lot fun."
By LORI LAW • Correspondent • August 14, 2008
ZANESVILLE - Amid the games and rides of the midway, the tempting treats of the concessions and the exhibits, shows and competitions, there is a surprise waiting at the Muskingum County Fair under a very big tent.
The Zerbini Family Circus puts on two laugh and gasp filled shows daily under the big top at the west end of the fairgrounds. With acts including acrobats, jugglers, clowns and circus animals, the surprise is that the circus is free with admission to the fairgrounds.
"The Zerbini Family Circus really emphasizes family," said Fair Board President Darrel Cubbison "The whole family can come."
The tradition of the circus and Zanesville began in the 1800s, according to Cubbison, when people would line the streets to watch the circus train unload. Variety Attractions brought the Zerbini Family Circus, to the Muskingum County Fair this year. If the standing-room-only crowd under the big tent for Wednesday's afternoon show was any indication, Cubbison said, "Zanesville has always been a town that loves the circus."
Melody Ramiraz has spent the last 11 years as the ringmaster for the Zerbini Family Circus.
"This is the eighth generation we have owned the circus. We are all family-owned and operated so everyone has their job. It took us about three hours to set up and it will take us 45 minutes to tear down," Ramiraz said.
She said the circus is the oldest form of family entertainment and the family prides itself on the wholesome nature of the show.
"There's something for everyone. There are thrills, chills and laughs. There are animals and pretty girls doing all their different acts. It's an amazing family show," Ramiraz said.
Having come in Sunday night from New Jersey, the circus was ready for its first performance Monday afternoon. Ramiraz said that the family circus is on the road so much that she cannot remember where they will be heading next with all the performers and their big tent and menagerie of rescued animal performers.
"We have aerialists, acrobats, jugglers, hand balancing clowns, and performing animals. We have stars from South America, Mexico and Europe. All of our animals are rescued animals. We don't have any wild or endangered animals. We work so much that I don't have any idea where we will perform next. It's a fun life," she said.
On her grandfather's shoulders, Mylee Chambers sported her own clown make-up and couldn't take her eyes off of the action inside the big top.
"It's a good family outing to get together and do something together," Mike Chambers said.
The family wore matching T-shirts supporting a nephew in a singing competition later in the day,
"We are looking forward to that, too," Chambers said.
Jay Swingle, 10, said that he came into the circus because, "They have a lot of cool stuff and it looked like a cool thing to come and watch."
Clapping along with the clowns, Jeannie Thompson caught the end of the show Tuesday night and decided to come back and catch the rest of it Wednesday.
Asked about the best part of the circus, Thompson said "All of it. It's just a lot fun."
Monday, August 11, 2008
Some kinds of circus animals — tigers in particular — are healthier and happier and live longer than their counterparts in zoos.
NYTimes.com
'Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched,' by Amy Sutherland
Zoo Story
Review by ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS
Published: June 4, 2006
Amy Sutherland's title will draw the eyes of animal lovers. We have been kicked, bitten and scratched by the animals who fascinate us, but our interest does not flag, nor do we hold our injuries against those who inflicted them. Far from it — we are eager for more. Sutherland writes of those who are kicked, bitten and scratched under circumstances that many of us might dream of —as students of the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program (EATM) at Moorpark College in Ventura County, Calif. EATM produces specialists who train animals for television and film and hold jobs at aquariums and zoos. Thousands of young people, especially women (who make up an overwhelming majority of students at EATM), long for such careers and wonder how to achieve them. Some will be applying to Moorpark before they finish Sutherland's last chapter.
Before they send the application, though, they should read this account of a year at EATM through to the end. Not only do aspiring trainers risk being injured or even killed by animals. They also have to pull the heads off pigeons and put rats in gas chambers — not nice at all, especially for an animal lover, but the captive raptors and reptiles eat the rats and pigeons, and someone has to kill them first. Furthermore, EATM is like boot camp. Roll call is at 6:30 a.m., and students are penalized for every minute they are late. They must clean cages and shovel dung as well as maintain good grades in an academic program. Students must also adhere to a dress code and, if so ordered, let a mandrill pinch them as a safe way of venting his rage. Many will not be able to maintain the pace or tolerate the strict atmosphere and will drop out or be kicked out. But those who complete the program will be ready for meaningful, important jobs. They will not make much money but they will be doing what they love — working with animals.
Light and easy to read, "Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched" contains many entertaining stories about people and animals, including an account of the program's founder, Bill Brisby, a domineering "John Wayne type" who died in 2000. The book contains a gripping story of a forest fire that forces a rushed evacuation as students lead a caravan of animals to safety. Yet Sutherland has little to say about the actual substance of training, and her unquestioning acceptance of trainer values will raise some hackles. She refers to SeaWorld as a "mecca," which would not be the view of those who study wild cetaceans and feel these animals should have their freedom. She skims over the fact that many of the social animals at EATM are caged alone except when with a trainer, and therefore would suffer from loneliness and anxiety. One must read between the lines to surmise that their loneliness serves to facilitate the training process.
Sutherland also uncritically accepts the trainers' glib, often inaccurate interpretations of animal behavior. She describes the process by which students learn to take a wolf named Legend out for a walk on a leash. Legend, alone in her cage, "yearns to be in a group," Sutherland writes. "To train and walk the wolf, the students must become her pack members." First, they must enter the wolf's cage, which is like "changing the guard." The trainer, a woman named Holly Tumas, "steps through the door first, closing it behind her," we are told. "Then a student does the same. When they are in the cage they never, ever turn their backs on Legend. Meanwhile, as Tumas commands, Legend sits on a tree stump in the middle of the cage. . . . 'On your mark,' Tumas orders in her deep, firm wolf voice. Legend does as told by her alpha." But this does not describe behavior in a wolf pack, and there are no "pack members" here, potential or otherwise. This describes a wary slave and her masters.
Despite such shortcomings, Sutherland's book does showcase the importance of training in a world where wild places are quickly disappearing and many species may soon exist only in captivity. Despite the beliefs of animal rights activists, many captive animals welcome their training. With nothing to do, they can suffer miserably from boredom. Training gives them a life. Some kinds of circus animals — tigers in particular — are healthier and happier and live longer than their counterparts in zoos. Circus tigers seldom pace or sleep as if in coma. When not in the ring, they are awake and alert, interested in the nearby tigers and the activity going on around them. When their trainer comes by, they chuff a greeting.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other activists managed to shut down many of the tiger acts, but not before zookeepers learned what the circus people knew — caged animals enjoy entertainment. Today, many zoos provide training for their captives — a big change from even a decade ago, when zoo professionals were wary of teaching animals "nonnaturalistic" behaviors and, as one EATM graduate told Sutherland, "if you wanted to work at a zoo you had to keep your training prowess a secret." Trainers can brighten the lives of zoo animals in dozens of ways, from medicating them without sedation to walking them on leashes as a break from their cages.
Thus the EATM program, for all its rat killing and solitary confinement, is, as Sutherland puts it, a kind of passage into a pan-species environment, in which training is simply "a tool to reach its broader goal — changing the captive animal world for the better." The animal rights activists may not appreciate this, but the animals will.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's books include "Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture" and "The Hidden Life of Dogs."
'Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched,' by Amy Sutherland
Zoo Story
Review by ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS
Published: June 4, 2006
Amy Sutherland's title will draw the eyes of animal lovers. We have been kicked, bitten and scratched by the animals who fascinate us, but our interest does not flag, nor do we hold our injuries against those who inflicted them. Far from it — we are eager for more. Sutherland writes of those who are kicked, bitten and scratched under circumstances that many of us might dream of —as students of the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program (EATM) at Moorpark College in Ventura County, Calif. EATM produces specialists who train animals for television and film and hold jobs at aquariums and zoos. Thousands of young people, especially women (who make up an overwhelming majority of students at EATM), long for such careers and wonder how to achieve them. Some will be applying to Moorpark before they finish Sutherland's last chapter.
Before they send the application, though, they should read this account of a year at EATM through to the end. Not only do aspiring trainers risk being injured or even killed by animals. They also have to pull the heads off pigeons and put rats in gas chambers — not nice at all, especially for an animal lover, but the captive raptors and reptiles eat the rats and pigeons, and someone has to kill them first. Furthermore, EATM is like boot camp. Roll call is at 6:30 a.m., and students are penalized for every minute they are late. They must clean cages and shovel dung as well as maintain good grades in an academic program. Students must also adhere to a dress code and, if so ordered, let a mandrill pinch them as a safe way of venting his rage. Many will not be able to maintain the pace or tolerate the strict atmosphere and will drop out or be kicked out. But those who complete the program will be ready for meaningful, important jobs. They will not make much money but they will be doing what they love — working with animals.
Light and easy to read, "Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched" contains many entertaining stories about people and animals, including an account of the program's founder, Bill Brisby, a domineering "John Wayne type" who died in 2000. The book contains a gripping story of a forest fire that forces a rushed evacuation as students lead a caravan of animals to safety. Yet Sutherland has little to say about the actual substance of training, and her unquestioning acceptance of trainer values will raise some hackles. She refers to SeaWorld as a "mecca," which would not be the view of those who study wild cetaceans and feel these animals should have their freedom. She skims over the fact that many of the social animals at EATM are caged alone except when with a trainer, and therefore would suffer from loneliness and anxiety. One must read between the lines to surmise that their loneliness serves to facilitate the training process.
Sutherland also uncritically accepts the trainers' glib, often inaccurate interpretations of animal behavior. She describes the process by which students learn to take a wolf named Legend out for a walk on a leash. Legend, alone in her cage, "yearns to be in a group," Sutherland writes. "To train and walk the wolf, the students must become her pack members." First, they must enter the wolf's cage, which is like "changing the guard." The trainer, a woman named Holly Tumas, "steps through the door first, closing it behind her," we are told. "Then a student does the same. When they are in the cage they never, ever turn their backs on Legend. Meanwhile, as Tumas commands, Legend sits on a tree stump in the middle of the cage. . . . 'On your mark,' Tumas orders in her deep, firm wolf voice. Legend does as told by her alpha." But this does not describe behavior in a wolf pack, and there are no "pack members" here, potential or otherwise. This describes a wary slave and her masters.
Despite such shortcomings, Sutherland's book does showcase the importance of training in a world where wild places are quickly disappearing and many species may soon exist only in captivity. Despite the beliefs of animal rights activists, many captive animals welcome their training. With nothing to do, they can suffer miserably from boredom. Training gives them a life. Some kinds of circus animals — tigers in particular — are healthier and happier and live longer than their counterparts in zoos. Circus tigers seldom pace or sleep as if in coma. When not in the ring, they are awake and alert, interested in the nearby tigers and the activity going on around them. When their trainer comes by, they chuff a greeting.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other activists managed to shut down many of the tiger acts, but not before zookeepers learned what the circus people knew — caged animals enjoy entertainment. Today, many zoos provide training for their captives — a big change from even a decade ago, when zoo professionals were wary of teaching animals "nonnaturalistic" behaviors and, as one EATM graduate told Sutherland, "if you wanted to work at a zoo you had to keep your training prowess a secret." Trainers can brighten the lives of zoo animals in dozens of ways, from medicating them without sedation to walking them on leashes as a break from their cages.
Thus the EATM program, for all its rat killing and solitary confinement, is, as Sutherland puts it, a kind of passage into a pan-species environment, in which training is simply "a tool to reach its broader goal — changing the captive animal world for the better." The animal rights activists may not appreciate this, but the animals will.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's books include "Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture" and "The Hidden Life of Dogs."
Under the big top at the Skowhegan fair
BY JOEL ELLIOTT
Staff Writer
08/11/2008
Photo by JP Fortier
UNDER THE BIG TOP: New this year the the Skowhegan State Fair is a circus that includes a high-wire act .
Today's Top Headlines
from the Kennebec Journal
All of today's: News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal
SKOWHEGAN -- Thirty feet above the crowd, the tightrope walker skipped rope, the wire beneath him bouncing with each hop.
Then he tripped and fell. Those in the circus tent the Skowhegan State Fair gave the requisite collective gasp as his feet went out from under him and he lunged, grabbed the wire in his hands and swung himself up and over into a sitting position. He let on it was an accident, and it was pretty convincing.
But he never lost his jump rope, and went on to perform for 10 more minutes to much applause. After that came a variety of spectacles, including a hula-hoop artist, acrobats and a pair of motorcyclists who rode loops and spirals inside a round steel cage, defying gravity and audience expectations that they might fall from the round ceiling and smash the female performer who stood stock-still below them at the bottom of the cage.
But 5-year-old Caleb Heald, of Albion, liked the performing Friesian horses the circus had brought from the Netherlands.
"It was very good," he said. "My favorite was the horses. I thought they were pretty."
The caged motorcyclers were all right, he said, but very loud.
"I liked them -- but at that point, my head nearly cracked open," he said. "It made me dizzy."
It was his second trip to the Skowhegan State Fair, and Caleb wasn't interested in standing around talking about it. As he set off in search of more fun, his parents, Kris and Gudrun Heald, trailed behind.
"As a family, we've only been here two times," Kris Heald said. "But I grew up here (in Skowhegan), so I grew up coming here."
One of the fair's directors, Walter Hight, was lingering in the beer garden watching horses and sulkies as they skimmed around the racetrack.
He was pleased with the absence of rain and said the sunshine was a factor in the increasing numbers of people in attendance.
That, and the circus, called Coronas of Hollywood, which is new this year to the Skowhegan State Fair and includes the performances under the big top as well as a collection of giraffes and other animals, Hight said.
"They love it. We've been getting calls with people telling us how great it is," he said. "They claim it is one hell of a show."
Joel Elliott -- 861-9252
jelliott@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
08/11/2008
Photo by JP Fortier
UNDER THE BIG TOP: New this year the the Skowhegan State Fair is a circus that includes a high-wire act .
Today's Top Headlines
from the Kennebec Journal
All of today's: News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal
SKOWHEGAN -- Thirty feet above the crowd, the tightrope walker skipped rope, the wire beneath him bouncing with each hop.
Then he tripped and fell. Those in the circus tent the Skowhegan State Fair gave the requisite collective gasp as his feet went out from under him and he lunged, grabbed the wire in his hands and swung himself up and over into a sitting position. He let on it was an accident, and it was pretty convincing.
But he never lost his jump rope, and went on to perform for 10 more minutes to much applause. After that came a variety of spectacles, including a hula-hoop artist, acrobats and a pair of motorcyclists who rode loops and spirals inside a round steel cage, defying gravity and audience expectations that they might fall from the round ceiling and smash the female performer who stood stock-still below them at the bottom of the cage.
But 5-year-old Caleb Heald, of Albion, liked the performing Friesian horses the circus had brought from the Netherlands.
"It was very good," he said. "My favorite was the horses. I thought they were pretty."
The caged motorcyclers were all right, he said, but very loud.
"I liked them -- but at that point, my head nearly cracked open," he said. "It made me dizzy."
It was his second trip to the Skowhegan State Fair, and Caleb wasn't interested in standing around talking about it. As he set off in search of more fun, his parents, Kris and Gudrun Heald, trailed behind.
"As a family, we've only been here two times," Kris Heald said. "But I grew up here (in Skowhegan), so I grew up coming here."
One of the fair's directors, Walter Hight, was lingering in the beer garden watching horses and sulkies as they skimmed around the racetrack.
He was pleased with the absence of rain and said the sunshine was a factor in the increasing numbers of people in attendance.
That, and the circus, called Coronas of Hollywood, which is new this year to the Skowhegan State Fair and includes the performances under the big top as well as a collection of giraffes and other animals, Hight said.
"They love it. We've been getting calls with people telling us how great it is," he said. "They claim it is one hell of a show."
Joel Elliott -- 861-9252
jelliott@centralmaine.com
Circus nets funds for charity home
Ronald McDonald House Charities was presented Thursday with a check for more than $6,000 from this year's "McDonald's Nights at the Circus" benefit.
During the George Carden Circus appearance at the Shrine Mosque March 7-16, special McDonald's Nights at the Circus were held. On those nights, McDonald's Springfield Metro Co-Op gave $1 from every ticket sold from one of its restaurants in Springfield, Nixa, Ozark and Republic to Ronald McDonald House Charities.
The benefit raised $6,323, which was donated at the Ronald McDonald House on Thursday.
The latest donation is in addition to the $38,059 the Springfield Metro Co-Op has donated since 2000 through this fundraiser.
The cornerstone project of Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ozarks, the Ronald McDonald House, is a "home away from home" for families of seriously ill and injured children who must travel far from home for medical care.
The house at 949 E. Primrose St. provides lodging, hope, comfort and emotional support during these difficult times. The house has benefited more than 6,600 families in the past 20 years.
Planning continues for a new Ronald McDonald House at St. John's Hospital. The new Ronald McDonald House is expected to be open before 2010.
For more information about the Ronald McDonald House of the Ozarks, go to www.ronaldmcdonaldhouse.org.
During the George Carden Circus appearance at the Shrine Mosque March 7-16, special McDonald's Nights at the Circus were held. On those nights, McDonald's Springfield Metro Co-Op gave $1 from every ticket sold from one of its restaurants in Springfield, Nixa, Ozark and Republic to Ronald McDonald House Charities.
The benefit raised $6,323, which was donated at the Ronald McDonald House on Thursday.
The latest donation is in addition to the $38,059 the Springfield Metro Co-Op has donated since 2000 through this fundraiser.
The cornerstone project of Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ozarks, the Ronald McDonald House, is a "home away from home" for families of seriously ill and injured children who must travel far from home for medical care.
The house at 949 E. Primrose St. provides lodging, hope, comfort and emotional support during these difficult times. The house has benefited more than 6,600 families in the past 20 years.
Planning continues for a new Ronald McDonald House at St. John's Hospital. The new Ronald McDonald House is expected to be open before 2010.
For more information about the Ronald McDonald House of the Ozarks, go to www.ronaldmcdonaldhouse.org.
Christopher Walken the Lion Tamer
CELEBS' SUMMERS WERE HAZY & CRAZY
By Cindy Adams
"In 1961, during one summer break from Professional Children's School, Christopher Walken worked for the Tarryl Jacobs Circus. His job? Lion tamer. "When head tamer Tarryl Jr. finished his performance, I'd enter the cage with Sheba the lion and, cracking a whip, demand: 'Up, Sheba, up.' And old, toothless, friendly as a dog, he'd deliver a suitably hair-raising roar. He was a consummate professional."
By Cindy Adams
"In 1961, during one summer break from Professional Children's School, Christopher Walken worked for the Tarryl Jacobs Circus. His job? Lion tamer. "When head tamer Tarryl Jr. finished his performance, I'd enter the cage with Sheba the lion and, cracking a whip, demand: 'Up, Sheba, up.' And old, toothless, friendly as a dog, he'd deliver a suitably hair-raising roar. He was a consummate professional."
EDITORIAL: Animal rights terrorists
Police recently found pamphlets at a Santa Cruz, Calif., coffeehouse that listed the names and home addresses of scientists who use animals in their experiments. "Animal abusers everywhere, beware. We know where you live," the pamphlets read.
Four days later, last Saturday, the terrorists followed through on their threats. In one incident, a University of California, Santa Cruz biomedical researcher and his family had to escape their home from a second-floor window after a firebomb exploded on their porch.
The same morning, the vehicle of another research scientist was set aflame and destroyed.
It was a sharp escalation in aggression from February, when masked activists pounded at the door of a Santa Cruz breast cancer researcher during her young daughter's birthday party. Harassment and vandalism have also targeted the homes of UCLA and University of California, Berkeley scientists in recent years.
The most recent attacks, however, demonstrate a clear desire to harm scientists (and their loved ones) who rightly put our lives ahead of those of animals. The most militant animal rights activists make no bones about their mission.
"It's regrettable that certain scientists are willing to put their families at risk by choosing to do wasteful animal experiments," Dr. Jerry Vlasak of North American Animal Liberation said in a statement.
You'd expect to hear this kind of vitriol on Al-Jazeera. For heaven's sake, at least mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel had the decency to assure builder Del Webb, "We only kill each other."
We should no more glorify these terrorists than we should applaud those who believe it is justified to kill doctors who perform legal abortions.
Unfortunately, these extremists are achieving their goals within the University of California system, scaring many brilliant scientists into abandoning animal-related research that could greatly benefit humanity. They are moving far beyond circus protests, animal releases and demands for the humane treatment of lab animals. They are using terrorist tactics, limiting communications and concealing identities, to avoid capture.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security should use all their resources to bring these terrorists to justice.
Aug. 11, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Four days later, last Saturday, the terrorists followed through on their threats. In one incident, a University of California, Santa Cruz biomedical researcher and his family had to escape their home from a second-floor window after a firebomb exploded on their porch.
The same morning, the vehicle of another research scientist was set aflame and destroyed.
It was a sharp escalation in aggression from February, when masked activists pounded at the door of a Santa Cruz breast cancer researcher during her young daughter's birthday party. Harassment and vandalism have also targeted the homes of UCLA and University of California, Berkeley scientists in recent years.
The most recent attacks, however, demonstrate a clear desire to harm scientists (and their loved ones) who rightly put our lives ahead of those of animals. The most militant animal rights activists make no bones about their mission.
"It's regrettable that certain scientists are willing to put their families at risk by choosing to do wasteful animal experiments," Dr. Jerry Vlasak of North American Animal Liberation said in a statement.
You'd expect to hear this kind of vitriol on Al-Jazeera. For heaven's sake, at least mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel had the decency to assure builder Del Webb, "We only kill each other."
We should no more glorify these terrorists than we should applaud those who believe it is justified to kill doctors who perform legal abortions.
Unfortunately, these extremists are achieving their goals within the University of California system, scaring many brilliant scientists into abandoning animal-related research that could greatly benefit humanity. They are moving far beyond circus protests, animal releases and demands for the humane treatment of lab animals. They are using terrorist tactics, limiting communications and concealing identities, to avoid capture.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security should use all their resources to bring these terrorists to justice.
Aug. 11, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Ring mistress defends controversial circus
Ring mistress defends controversial circus
By Andy Walker
Comment
THE ring mistress of a circus criticised by animal rights campaigners for using live horses, camels and goats in its performances has vowed: "We have nothing to hide".
Circus Mondao, visiting Northallerton this week, has been slammed by the Captive Animals' Protection Society (Caps), which has called for thrill-seekers to boycott the show.
Campaigners say the circus is one of just seven touring shows that still uses animals.
advertisementThe circus, which has recently visited Thirsk and Whitby, uses dozens of animals, including llamas, rabbits and dogs.
Ring mistress Petra Jackson says the animals are well looked-after by circus staff.
She said: "The RSPCA inspectors can come and have a look around whenever they like.
"We have got nothing to hide.
"Animal welfare officers have visited us in the past, and never found anything wrong."
Ms Jackson said she believed that circuses were being unfairly singled out by animal rights groups.
She said: "We travelled from Thirsk to Northallerton, which is about eight miles.
"Our horses will have been in their boxes for no more than two hours.
"What about the horses that have been taken to China for the Olympics?
"How long must they have been kept in horse boxes for.
"People need to look at the wider picture. Animals are transported every day.
"We love our animals and we want to them off, show people how talented they are.
"Yes, there is a certain amount of discipline involved, but it is no different to people training their domestic pets to fetch, for example."
A Caps spokesman said: "With so many excellent animal-free circuses now touring, the days of transporting animals from town to town is becoming a thing of the past.
"Opinion polls consistently reveal that the public opposes the confinement, transportation and training methods used by animal circuses.
"It is time to end the outdated practice of forcing animals to perform for our amusement, particularly when there are lots of high-quality circuses that rely entirely on human skills.
"In the 21st Century, there can be no excuse for continuing to allow the treatment of animals in this way."
Circus Mondao is performing at Northallerton Rugby Club, in Brompton Road, from Wednesday until Sunday. For tickets, visit cirucsmondao.co.uk or call 07722-791777.
For more information about Caps, visit captiveanimals.org
By Andy Walker
Comment
THE ring mistress of a circus criticised by animal rights campaigners for using live horses, camels and goats in its performances has vowed: "We have nothing to hide".
Circus Mondao, visiting Northallerton this week, has been slammed by the Captive Animals' Protection Society (Caps), which has called for thrill-seekers to boycott the show.
Campaigners say the circus is one of just seven touring shows that still uses animals.
advertisementThe circus, which has recently visited Thirsk and Whitby, uses dozens of animals, including llamas, rabbits and dogs.
Ring mistress Petra Jackson says the animals are well looked-after by circus staff.
She said: "The RSPCA inspectors can come and have a look around whenever they like.
"We have got nothing to hide.
"Animal welfare officers have visited us in the past, and never found anything wrong."
Ms Jackson said she believed that circuses were being unfairly singled out by animal rights groups.
She said: "We travelled from Thirsk to Northallerton, which is about eight miles.
"Our horses will have been in their boxes for no more than two hours.
"What about the horses that have been taken to China for the Olympics?
"How long must they have been kept in horse boxes for.
"People need to look at the wider picture. Animals are transported every day.
"We love our animals and we want to them off, show people how talented they are.
"Yes, there is a certain amount of discipline involved, but it is no different to people training their domestic pets to fetch, for example."
A Caps spokesman said: "With so many excellent animal-free circuses now touring, the days of transporting animals from town to town is becoming a thing of the past.
"Opinion polls consistently reveal that the public opposes the confinement, transportation and training methods used by animal circuses.
"It is time to end the outdated practice of forcing animals to perform for our amusement, particularly when there are lots of high-quality circuses that rely entirely on human skills.
"In the 21st Century, there can be no excuse for continuing to allow the treatment of animals in this way."
Circus Mondao is performing at Northallerton Rugby Club, in Brompton Road, from Wednesday until Sunday. For tickets, visit cirucsmondao.co.uk or call 07722-791777.
For more information about Caps, visit captiveanimals.org
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Animal Lovers Protest Carnival In Miami
"This reporter was so misinformed he didn't know the difference between a circus and a carnival. Things like this just make me angry. I've already started my letter to the network.
Logan"
Animal Lovers Protest Carnival In Miami
MIAMI (CBS4) ― The circus is in South Florida, but not everybody is welcoming the event and performers.
Members from the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida protested outside Miami's Bicentennial Park on Saturday. The Circus Vasquez is being held in the park. Circus Vasquez reportedly has a history of animal cruelty and human safety violations throughout the United States.
The group recently discovered the traveling animal circus continues to work two elephants, Tina and Jewel, despite severely impaired health. The animals were supposedly previously banned from traveling by the U.S. Department of Agriculture because of their health problems.
Many protestors say animal abuse is a trend throughout the entire circus industry. The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida plans on protesting during many of the circus performances while the circus is here in South Florida.
Circus officials have not commented on the protests or on the current health of their animals. Circus Vasquez, also known as Circo Hermanos Vazquez, was founded in Mexico City in 1969. The circus is now based out of Texas.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Logan"
Animal Lovers Protest Carnival In Miami
MIAMI (CBS4) ― The circus is in South Florida, but not everybody is welcoming the event and performers.
Members from the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida protested outside Miami's Bicentennial Park on Saturday. The Circus Vasquez is being held in the park. Circus Vasquez reportedly has a history of animal cruelty and human safety violations throughout the United States.
The group recently discovered the traveling animal circus continues to work two elephants, Tina and Jewel, despite severely impaired health. The animals were supposedly previously banned from traveling by the U.S. Department of Agriculture because of their health problems.
Many protestors say animal abuse is a trend throughout the entire circus industry. The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida plans on protesting during many of the circus performances while the circus is here in South Florida.
Circus officials have not commented on the protests or on the current health of their animals. Circus Vasquez, also known as Circo Hermanos Vazquez, was founded in Mexico City in 1969. The circus is now based out of Texas.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elephant's care a labour of love
Elephant's care a labour of love
Malti a special part of Calgary Zoo's family
Valerie Fortney
Calgary Herald
Sunday, August 10, 2008
It was a party worthy of any cute and cuddly one-year-old: cupcakes, presents, party hats, cheering children and flashing camera bulbs to capture the special moment.
But the first birthday party for Malti, one that drew more than 200 kids and adults Friday to the Calgary Zoo's Elephant Crossing exhibit, was an event fit for royalty -- and for good reason.
Yes, there are the obvious special qualities she possesses, like her grey, sandpaper-like skin, her snout that doubles as a hand to snap up peanuts and bananas, and her girth -- she weighs in at a whopping 900 pounds.
One of the country's most famous four-legged one-year-olds is special for another reason: had her caregivers left it up solely to Mother Nature, it's likely this milestone would never have been realized.
Rejected at birth by her mother Maharani, Malti the Asian elephant found her salvation in a group of never-say-die caregivers, six elephant keepers, backed up by medical professionals, who worked round-the-clock for months. Thanks to them, an elephant once in danger of not making it past 365 days of life can now look forward to potentially 50, even 60, years on the planet.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. In Malti's case, it indeed took a caring, committed community. This is the story of some of the people who helped make it happen for Calgary's beloved baby elephant.
It takes a different breed of human to thrive in the pachyderm world.
Scott Russell and Trevor Engelage would, at first glance, appear to have little in common. Russell, a 44-year-old father of two and 20-year Calgary Zoo veteran, has a soft-spoken, business-like approach to his job as an elephant keeper. The 31-year-old, unattached Engelage, a new transplant from Quebec who first honed his skills in the early 1990s working for the circus and at safari parks, possesses a cocky, showman style.
As they let this writer spend a day behind the scenes at the zoo's newly expanded Elephant Crossing exhibit, it's clear they share one important trait: an unwavering passion for nature's biggest land animal.
"I am still amazed I can walk in and tell something that weighs three tons what to do -- and they listen," says Russell.
"They fascinate me on so many levels," says Engelage. "Intelligence is number one, and second is the strength they possess. They do everything gingerly and calmly, but if they want, they can be as strong as any bulldozer."
But the two men who form part of the six-member team in charge of the Calgary Zoo's five elephants insist there's one thing that trumps all in their vocation: and that's the elephant.
"They choose you," says Russell. "Elephants intimidate a lot of people, even zoo people. You have to gain their respect and trust, which can take up to a year, if ever, to earn.
"You need to be confident, but not too confident," says Russell. "It's like flying a fighter jet," adds Engelage. "There are a lot of intricacies to them."
So far, Malti's been an exception. But that's due to the fact that from the moment she first opened her eyes that night one year ago, the elephant named for the Hindi word "moonlight" has been greeted by human faces.
Along with grandmother Kamala, father Spike, mother Maharani and "aunt" Swarna, the six elephant keepers who have hand-raised her are like family members.
After a 22-month gestation, it took only 20 minutes for delivery of the adorable new addition. But the baby pachyderm, which emerged at 3:20 a.m. on Aug. 9, 2007, needed all the help she could get. Her mother, known to her keepers as Rani, had rejected her baby Keemaya in 2004; despite the best efforts of zoo staff, the sickly girl nicknamed Cutie Pie died at three weeks old.
Although Malti weighed in for her debut at a robust 308 pounds -- Russell says anywhere between 250 and 300 pounds is considered a healthy birth weight -- the 17-year-old mother's disinterest in this newest arrival seemed to be a case of history repeating itself.
The elephant keepers, though, aren't the kind of guys who give up easily. Immediately, they isolated mother and child from public view and began round-the-clock care that would last for several months.
Getting Rani to nurse her baby, says Russell, at first took all six men and copious amounts of apple and cantaloupe as incentive.
"She didn't want anything to do with the kid," says Russell, also noting the Calgary Zoo is the first institution to successfully initiate the nursing process in a mother who'd rejected her offspring.
I try to get him to paint a picture of how six humans managed to manoeuvre a 300-pound baby under a 6,500-pound mother, but he just laughs.
"We had to be on our toes," he says. "It's all a bit of a blur now."
The feedings, which took place every two hours on a 24-hour basis for the first few weeks, meant the men were getting only two-hour rests on air mattresses in the musty building that houses the elephants.
"Brent (Van Hooft) slept on hay bales," recalls Engelage of one of the keepers. "He looked like a deer bedding down for the night."
Friends, family and volunteers brought in a steady flow of food to help keep up energy levels. "You'd wake up not knowing if it was morning or night," says Engelage. "Just that, man, you needed a shower."
After the first week, they got the hang of it enough that the sleep periods extended from two to four hours; eventually, the men were able to go home for a day on a rotating basis.
In between, they would exercise Malti, as well as try to encourage her and mom to bond.
"We'd just keep them together as much as possible, and hope for the best," says Russell.
In time, the feeding times decreased, first shortened to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., then later 8:30 p.m.; now, Malti receives a combination of her mother's milk and formula every 90 minutes, starting at 7 a.m. and ending each day at 6 p.m. The growing baby, who is predicted to eventually top out at more than 6,000 pounds by the time she's 20, consumes more than 25 litres of milk per day.
"Going home at six o'clock feels like you're on vacation," says Engelage with a laugh.
Malti is also getting the hang of training, having learned to lift her feet, move sideways, backwards and forward, to lay on her side and to open her mouth wide so her caregivers can check her teeth.
"We're now seeing the benefits of her not bonding as well with her mother," says Russell, who notes the number one challenge of training is separating baby from mother for lesson time. "But Malti likes to come with us and Rani doesn't seem to mind."
Other than one mild bout of clostridium, a bacteria that, among other things, brings on diarrhea, Malti is about as healthy as one can hope for in a baby elephant.
"She's pretty much out of the woods now," says Russell of the baby who recently moved onto such solids as apple and hay. "If her mother dried up tomorrow, we'd be able to feed her from the bottle."
She's also one heck of a smart kid, say her keepers.
"She's very playful and bright," says Russell as Malti wraps herself around a red hose while Engelage sprays her down. "She's easy to train because she likes to be challenged."
It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, to find the two men are thrilled with their roles in bringing up baby.
"I can't speak for the others, but I feel pretty proud," says Engelage as the freshly washed elephant with Brillo-Pad hair snuggles up to this apprehensive visitor.
"It's quite the accomplishment," says Russell, adding with a laugh, "I sometimes think, 'It's only been a year? It feels like decades.' "
Russell and Engelage are well aware of the continued debate over the world in which animals like Malti live.
"It's either a conversation starter or a conversation killer," says Engelage in reference to telling people what he does for a living. "There are a lot more activists out there now than there used to be."
Groups like Zoocheck Canada, an organization that focuses on captive wild animal issues, stands firm on its opposition to keeping such large animals as elephants in captivity at all, as does People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Such organizations have spoken out in recent years against the Calgary Zoo's captive breeding program; earlier this year, after keeper Brent Van Hooft was injured when he was pushed into a wall by Swarna, a 34-year-old female Asian elephant, both groups urged the zoo to implement a protected-contact practice -- in which a safety barrier is between elephants and keepers at all times -- for all of its residents, not just its 12,000-pound male, Spike.
But organizations like the North America-wide Association of Zoos and Aquariums, of which the Calgary Zoo is a member, defend captivity and breeding of such endangered animals as part of a conservation strategy that will help save them from extinction.
"There will always be those who don't want animals in zoos at all," says Engelage as he scrubs Spike's giant foot through a slot in his fortified cage. "But the elephants do very well in captivity if they're well taken care of."
Russell concurs: "I feel good about what I do. We treat with them with the utmost respect and care."
"That was our goal, to get her to her first birthday," says Dave Percival as he watches Malti play, like a typical one-year-old, with the cardboard box her toy ball came in. "So seeing this day become a reality is pretty overwhelming."
As the hundreds of fans sing Happy Birthday to Malti while she flattens a watermelon with one flick of her foot, Percival and Bob Kam look on with the expression of delighted parents.
Percival and Kam, who have more than 50 years experience with elephants between them, are part of Team Malti (Van Hooft, who has recovered from his injuries, and Les O'Brien are the other two).
In fact, Kam admits his 35 years of service at the Calgary Zoo more than qualifies him for full pension.
But he says that even today, the majestic beasts continue to captivate him.
He believes zookeepers have an important role to play in the conservation of such endangered species. But mostly, he's hooked in by the elephants' smarts.
"You can have a real friendship with an elephant," he says. "You can't do that with most zoo animals."
As Malti rests her snout against Kam's hand, Percival sums up the joy of this momentous day for not only the keepers, but also everyone present.
"We're biased, but we think she's perfect," he says with a smile. "And perfect is good enough for us."
And as for the cupcakes? Those were for the human kids, of course. Because while Malti may be part of the Calgary Zoos' family, she is, after all, an elephant.
vfortney@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Malti a special part of Calgary Zoo's family
Valerie Fortney
Calgary Herald
Sunday, August 10, 2008
It was a party worthy of any cute and cuddly one-year-old: cupcakes, presents, party hats, cheering children and flashing camera bulbs to capture the special moment.
But the first birthday party for Malti, one that drew more than 200 kids and adults Friday to the Calgary Zoo's Elephant Crossing exhibit, was an event fit for royalty -- and for good reason.
Yes, there are the obvious special qualities she possesses, like her grey, sandpaper-like skin, her snout that doubles as a hand to snap up peanuts and bananas, and her girth -- she weighs in at a whopping 900 pounds.
One of the country's most famous four-legged one-year-olds is special for another reason: had her caregivers left it up solely to Mother Nature, it's likely this milestone would never have been realized.
Rejected at birth by her mother Maharani, Malti the Asian elephant found her salvation in a group of never-say-die caregivers, six elephant keepers, backed up by medical professionals, who worked round-the-clock for months. Thanks to them, an elephant once in danger of not making it past 365 days of life can now look forward to potentially 50, even 60, years on the planet.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. In Malti's case, it indeed took a caring, committed community. This is the story of some of the people who helped make it happen for Calgary's beloved baby elephant.
It takes a different breed of human to thrive in the pachyderm world.
Scott Russell and Trevor Engelage would, at first glance, appear to have little in common. Russell, a 44-year-old father of two and 20-year Calgary Zoo veteran, has a soft-spoken, business-like approach to his job as an elephant keeper. The 31-year-old, unattached Engelage, a new transplant from Quebec who first honed his skills in the early 1990s working for the circus and at safari parks, possesses a cocky, showman style.
As they let this writer spend a day behind the scenes at the zoo's newly expanded Elephant Crossing exhibit, it's clear they share one important trait: an unwavering passion for nature's biggest land animal.
"I am still amazed I can walk in and tell something that weighs three tons what to do -- and they listen," says Russell.
"They fascinate me on so many levels," says Engelage. "Intelligence is number one, and second is the strength they possess. They do everything gingerly and calmly, but if they want, they can be as strong as any bulldozer."
But the two men who form part of the six-member team in charge of the Calgary Zoo's five elephants insist there's one thing that trumps all in their vocation: and that's the elephant.
"They choose you," says Russell. "Elephants intimidate a lot of people, even zoo people. You have to gain their respect and trust, which can take up to a year, if ever, to earn.
"You need to be confident, but not too confident," says Russell. "It's like flying a fighter jet," adds Engelage. "There are a lot of intricacies to them."
So far, Malti's been an exception. But that's due to the fact that from the moment she first opened her eyes that night one year ago, the elephant named for the Hindi word "moonlight" has been greeted by human faces.
Along with grandmother Kamala, father Spike, mother Maharani and "aunt" Swarna, the six elephant keepers who have hand-raised her are like family members.
After a 22-month gestation, it took only 20 minutes for delivery of the adorable new addition. But the baby pachyderm, which emerged at 3:20 a.m. on Aug. 9, 2007, needed all the help she could get. Her mother, known to her keepers as Rani, had rejected her baby Keemaya in 2004; despite the best efforts of zoo staff, the sickly girl nicknamed Cutie Pie died at three weeks old.
Although Malti weighed in for her debut at a robust 308 pounds -- Russell says anywhere between 250 and 300 pounds is considered a healthy birth weight -- the 17-year-old mother's disinterest in this newest arrival seemed to be a case of history repeating itself.
The elephant keepers, though, aren't the kind of guys who give up easily. Immediately, they isolated mother and child from public view and began round-the-clock care that would last for several months.
Getting Rani to nurse her baby, says Russell, at first took all six men and copious amounts of apple and cantaloupe as incentive.
"She didn't want anything to do with the kid," says Russell, also noting the Calgary Zoo is the first institution to successfully initiate the nursing process in a mother who'd rejected her offspring.
I try to get him to paint a picture of how six humans managed to manoeuvre a 300-pound baby under a 6,500-pound mother, but he just laughs.
"We had to be on our toes," he says. "It's all a bit of a blur now."
The feedings, which took place every two hours on a 24-hour basis for the first few weeks, meant the men were getting only two-hour rests on air mattresses in the musty building that houses the elephants.
"Brent (Van Hooft) slept on hay bales," recalls Engelage of one of the keepers. "He looked like a deer bedding down for the night."
Friends, family and volunteers brought in a steady flow of food to help keep up energy levels. "You'd wake up not knowing if it was morning or night," says Engelage. "Just that, man, you needed a shower."
After the first week, they got the hang of it enough that the sleep periods extended from two to four hours; eventually, the men were able to go home for a day on a rotating basis.
In between, they would exercise Malti, as well as try to encourage her and mom to bond.
"We'd just keep them together as much as possible, and hope for the best," says Russell.
In time, the feeding times decreased, first shortened to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., then later 8:30 p.m.; now, Malti receives a combination of her mother's milk and formula every 90 minutes, starting at 7 a.m. and ending each day at 6 p.m. The growing baby, who is predicted to eventually top out at more than 6,000 pounds by the time she's 20, consumes more than 25 litres of milk per day.
"Going home at six o'clock feels like you're on vacation," says Engelage with a laugh.
Malti is also getting the hang of training, having learned to lift her feet, move sideways, backwards and forward, to lay on her side and to open her mouth wide so her caregivers can check her teeth.
"We're now seeing the benefits of her not bonding as well with her mother," says Russell, who notes the number one challenge of training is separating baby from mother for lesson time. "But Malti likes to come with us and Rani doesn't seem to mind."
Other than one mild bout of clostridium, a bacteria that, among other things, brings on diarrhea, Malti is about as healthy as one can hope for in a baby elephant.
"She's pretty much out of the woods now," says Russell of the baby who recently moved onto such solids as apple and hay. "If her mother dried up tomorrow, we'd be able to feed her from the bottle."
She's also one heck of a smart kid, say her keepers.
"She's very playful and bright," says Russell as Malti wraps herself around a red hose while Engelage sprays her down. "She's easy to train because she likes to be challenged."
It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, to find the two men are thrilled with their roles in bringing up baby.
"I can't speak for the others, but I feel pretty proud," says Engelage as the freshly washed elephant with Brillo-Pad hair snuggles up to this apprehensive visitor.
"It's quite the accomplishment," says Russell, adding with a laugh, "I sometimes think, 'It's only been a year? It feels like decades.' "
Russell and Engelage are well aware of the continued debate over the world in which animals like Malti live.
"It's either a conversation starter or a conversation killer," says Engelage in reference to telling people what he does for a living. "There are a lot more activists out there now than there used to be."
Groups like Zoocheck Canada, an organization that focuses on captive wild animal issues, stands firm on its opposition to keeping such large animals as elephants in captivity at all, as does People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Such organizations have spoken out in recent years against the Calgary Zoo's captive breeding program; earlier this year, after keeper Brent Van Hooft was injured when he was pushed into a wall by Swarna, a 34-year-old female Asian elephant, both groups urged the zoo to implement a protected-contact practice -- in which a safety barrier is between elephants and keepers at all times -- for all of its residents, not just its 12,000-pound male, Spike.
But organizations like the North America-wide Association of Zoos and Aquariums, of which the Calgary Zoo is a member, defend captivity and breeding of such endangered animals as part of a conservation strategy that will help save them from extinction.
"There will always be those who don't want animals in zoos at all," says Engelage as he scrubs Spike's giant foot through a slot in his fortified cage. "But the elephants do very well in captivity if they're well taken care of."
Russell concurs: "I feel good about what I do. We treat with them with the utmost respect and care."
"That was our goal, to get her to her first birthday," says Dave Percival as he watches Malti play, like a typical one-year-old, with the cardboard box her toy ball came in. "So seeing this day become a reality is pretty overwhelming."
As the hundreds of fans sing Happy Birthday to Malti while she flattens a watermelon with one flick of her foot, Percival and Bob Kam look on with the expression of delighted parents.
Percival and Kam, who have more than 50 years experience with elephants between them, are part of Team Malti (Van Hooft, who has recovered from his injuries, and Les O'Brien are the other two).
In fact, Kam admits his 35 years of service at the Calgary Zoo more than qualifies him for full pension.
But he says that even today, the majestic beasts continue to captivate him.
He believes zookeepers have an important role to play in the conservation of such endangered species. But mostly, he's hooked in by the elephants' smarts.
"You can have a real friendship with an elephant," he says. "You can't do that with most zoo animals."
As Malti rests her snout against Kam's hand, Percival sums up the joy of this momentous day for not only the keepers, but also everyone present.
"We're biased, but we think she's perfect," he says with a smile. "And perfect is good enough for us."
And as for the cupcakes? Those were for the human kids, of course. Because while Malti may be part of the Calgary Zoos' family, she is, after all, an elephant.
vfortney@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
EDIT: My Big Announcement
I was asked to produce a circus show this Christmas for a local event. I am very excited. Wish me luck.
Logan
EDIT: I just found out that in addition to a show I they would like me to create a parade unit.
Any help advice? I'd be very grateful for any words of wisdom.
Logan
EDIT: I just found out that in addition to a show I they would like me to create a parade unit.
Any help advice? I'd be very grateful for any words of wisdom.
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!!!
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of All Ages,
I have a big announcement to make tonight at 9:00 pm (Eastern time zone.)
So stay tuned.
Logan
I have a big announcement to make tonight at 9:00 pm (Eastern time zone.)
So stay tuned.
Logan
Friday, August 8, 2008
An under-the-big-top survey of one of America's least-examined chapters of cultural history.
'The Circus 1870-1950'
An under-the-big-top survey of one of America's least-examined chapters of cultural history.
August 10, 2008
THE WHOLE searchlight drama around just about every lavish red-carpet event owes more than a nod and an air-kiss to the excitement of the giant American circuses that crisscrossed the United States long ago. "In scope and ambition, the circus invented the rules of engagement for today's global entertainment industry," writes editor Noel Daniel in the introduction of "The Circus 1870-1950," her sumptuous behind-the-tent survey of one of America's least deeply examined chapters of cultural history. "The circus was the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the Hollywood blockbuster all in one, brought right to your backyard."
At more than 600 pages and 900 images, including little-known work by Stanley Kubrick and Charles and Ray Eames, as well as vintage posters and advertisements, "The Circus" isn't just a sensationalist splash on the circus' sideshow/carny elements or an inventory of big, elegant beasts. Daniel digs into the sociology of the circus family -- the mobile city of tents, the unprecedented freedom female performers experienced on the road.
Most affecting are the pairings of old circus ads with photos of the actual performers out of "character."
The peek behind the greasepaint, of performers gathered around the dinner table or in simple street clothes getting into a car, imbues the life with something that is missing from what we think about the entertainment hype machine today, a sort of callused camaraderie that can only come with moving from town to town after a grueling one-night stand; a community of hundreds who must work as one.
--
Lynell George
An under-the-big-top survey of one of America's least-examined chapters of cultural history.
August 10, 2008
THE WHOLE searchlight drama around just about every lavish red-carpet event owes more than a nod and an air-kiss to the excitement of the giant American circuses that crisscrossed the United States long ago. "In scope and ambition, the circus invented the rules of engagement for today's global entertainment industry," writes editor Noel Daniel in the introduction of "The Circus 1870-1950," her sumptuous behind-the-tent survey of one of America's least deeply examined chapters of cultural history. "The circus was the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the Hollywood blockbuster all in one, brought right to your backyard."
At more than 600 pages and 900 images, including little-known work by Stanley Kubrick and Charles and Ray Eames, as well as vintage posters and advertisements, "The Circus" isn't just a sensationalist splash on the circus' sideshow/carny elements or an inventory of big, elegant beasts. Daniel digs into the sociology of the circus family -- the mobile city of tents, the unprecedented freedom female performers experienced on the road.
Most affecting are the pairings of old circus ads with photos of the actual performers out of "character."
The peek behind the greasepaint, of performers gathered around the dinner table or in simple street clothes getting into a car, imbues the life with something that is missing from what we think about the entertainment hype machine today, a sort of callused camaraderie that can only come with moving from town to town after a grueling one-night stand; a community of hundreds who must work as one.
--
Lynell George
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Ringling Bros. Has A New Website
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey has completely redone their website. It looks great. Go check it out.
www.ringling.com
Take care,
Logan Jacot
www.ringling.com
Take care,
Logan Jacot
It's Carson & Barnes Circus Time
Set Up
Clip of 2007 Carson 7 Barnes Elephant Act - Notice He doesn't touch with with the guide.
Newsclip of Armando Loyal
Carson & Barnes Circus in Batavia
NBC Newsclip-Carson & Barnes from 1981
Clip of 2007 Carson 7 Barnes Elephant Act - Notice He doesn't touch with with the guide.
Newsclip of Armando Loyal
Carson & Barnes Circus in Batavia
NBC Newsclip-Carson & Barnes from 1981
Tiger mauls worker at McHenry County circus-training site
"I'm not sure what the 2004 case has anything to do with the subject of this article. I'll never understand the media."
Logan
Tiger mauls worker at McHenry County circus-training site
Cuneo Farm kept big cats in exchange for giving up elephants to sanctuaries
By Jeff Long | Chicago Tribune reporter
2:23 PM CDT, August 7, 2008
A supervisor at a circus-training farm in McHenry County is recovering from scratches and bites to his upper body after being mauled by a tiger this week, the farm's owner said Thursday.
Larry Dean, who has worked at Hawthorn Corp. for more than 10 years, should not have been near the tigers when he was mauled Tuesday at the farm near Richmond, said Hawthorn owner John Cuneo.
"Somehow, he got close to one of the tigers," said Cuneo, who spoke to Dean on Thursday morning but was still unclear about details of the attack.
Cuneo said Dean is expected to be released Friday from Centegra Hospital-McHenry.
"They're always worried about infection, and rightly so," Cuneo said.
Hawthorn owns about 50 tigers, Cuneo said. But only about 30 of the animals are at the farm, he said. Others are performing at circuses around the world, Cuneo said.
In 2003 the U.S. Department of Agriculture accused Hawthorn of failing to care for its elephants properly, a charge denied by Cuneo. But in 2004 he agreed to give away his elephants in exchange for keeping his circus tigers.
Sanctuaries in Tennessee and California took Cuneo's 10 remaining elephants in 2006 and 2007.
jjlong@tribune.com
Logan
Tiger mauls worker at McHenry County circus-training site
Cuneo Farm kept big cats in exchange for giving up elephants to sanctuaries
By Jeff Long | Chicago Tribune reporter
2:23 PM CDT, August 7, 2008
A supervisor at a circus-training farm in McHenry County is recovering from scratches and bites to his upper body after being mauled by a tiger this week, the farm's owner said Thursday.
Larry Dean, who has worked at Hawthorn Corp. for more than 10 years, should not have been near the tigers when he was mauled Tuesday at the farm near Richmond, said Hawthorn owner John Cuneo.
"Somehow, he got close to one of the tigers," said Cuneo, who spoke to Dean on Thursday morning but was still unclear about details of the attack.
Cuneo said Dean is expected to be released Friday from Centegra Hospital-McHenry.
"They're always worried about infection, and rightly so," Cuneo said.
Hawthorn owns about 50 tigers, Cuneo said. But only about 30 of the animals are at the farm, he said. Others are performing at circuses around the world, Cuneo said.
In 2003 the U.S. Department of Agriculture accused Hawthorn of failing to care for its elephants properly, a charge denied by Cuneo. But in 2004 he agreed to give away his elephants in exchange for keeping his circus tigers.
Sanctuaries in Tennessee and California took Cuneo's 10 remaining elephants in 2006 and 2007.
jjlong@tribune.com
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Officials fold tent on circus
By SCOTTA CALLISTER
Editor
JOHN DAY - The Grant County Fairgrounds has cancelled a circus that was headed to town, just two weeks after the Better Business Bureau in Washington state raised an alarm about dealings with a traveling circus troop there.
The circus, dubbed either Circo Latino or Circus Latino Americas, had sought to perform Thursday, July 31, on the track in front of the grandstands.
However, fairgrounds manager Stephanie Walters said last week that too many questions have been raised about the circus' dealings in other communities to allow the show to go on. In addition, poorly produced fliers and tickets, which had numerous typographic or spelling errors, raised red flags, she said.
"The final straw was when I noticed on the tickets that they are coming Wednesday, July 31," Walters said. "July 31 is Thursday."
Walters said that with such events, the fairgrounds requires proof of liability insurance from the organizer, and also gets a cut of the admission proceeds at the end of the event.
However, those arrangements haven't worked out too well in some other communities that have hosted traveling circuses this summer.
The Colville, Wash., Chamber of Commerce recently issued a warning about a traveling circus that tried to set up at the Northeast Washington Fairgrounds. The Better Business Bureau investigated and sent out its own alert.
In Washington, the circus crew showed up without anyone signing the required contract paperwork in advance. The circus agents provided insurance information only when pressed, and fairgrounds officials said the information was questionable, the BBB said. In addition, two checks submitted to cover a deposit turned out to be written on a closed account.
The BBB said the circus had used the names Kingford Circus, Nevada Traveling Circus and others, with a drop-box address in Las Vegas. The contact for any of the circus names was listed as Carol King or Judy K, with two Nevada phone numbers.
Similar information was offered to the Grant County Fairgrounds last week. The fairgrounds originally was told that the Kingford or Kingsford Circus was coming, but by week's end the circus was described as Circo Latino or - on the tickets - "Circus Latina Armeicas."
Contacted by the Blue Mountain Eagle, the circus' representative identified as "Judy" said Circo Latino and the Kingford Circus are not connected - even though they have the same address and contact information.
"I represent a lot of circuses," she said.
Asked what went wrong in Washington state, she said she wasn't sure but that it was a "huge mess."
"I don't know what happened there. I've never had any negative feedback," she said.
She said Circo Latino is on a national tour. However, when asked where it would stop before and after John Day, she said she didn't know.
The circus was billed as a troup of performers - acrobats, jugglers, magicians, a Hannah Montana impersonator - and a dog act called "Cartoon poodles." It did not have exotic animals, she said.
Posters for the circus began appearing in windows in John Day more than a week ago. Tickets were listed at $10, although the promoters said coupons for discounts and kids' admission would be available at local merchants.
Jan Margosian, consumer information coordinator for the Oregon Department of Justice, said circuses are not required to register in any special way with the state. However, they do need to follow local and state laws, and they should be registered with the Secretary of State Corporations Division to conduct business in Oregon unless they are operating under the sponsorship of another organization, she said. A check of current records showed no registration for the Kingford or Latino circus names.
Zan Deery, communications and investigations officer for the BBB in Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Montana, said the main issue is the liability that would go back to the fairgrounds, if anything should go wrong.
Margosian said operators of fairgrounds and other venues can protect themselves in such cases by getting their money up front, or at least a deposit, and by verifying the proof of liability insurance.
Editor
JOHN DAY - The Grant County Fairgrounds has cancelled a circus that was headed to town, just two weeks after the Better Business Bureau in Washington state raised an alarm about dealings with a traveling circus troop there.
The circus, dubbed either Circo Latino or Circus Latino Americas, had sought to perform Thursday, July 31, on the track in front of the grandstands.
However, fairgrounds manager Stephanie Walters said last week that too many questions have been raised about the circus' dealings in other communities to allow the show to go on. In addition, poorly produced fliers and tickets, which had numerous typographic or spelling errors, raised red flags, she said.
"The final straw was when I noticed on the tickets that they are coming Wednesday, July 31," Walters said. "July 31 is Thursday."
Walters said that with such events, the fairgrounds requires proof of liability insurance from the organizer, and also gets a cut of the admission proceeds at the end of the event.
However, those arrangements haven't worked out too well in some other communities that have hosted traveling circuses this summer.
The Colville, Wash., Chamber of Commerce recently issued a warning about a traveling circus that tried to set up at the Northeast Washington Fairgrounds. The Better Business Bureau investigated and sent out its own alert.
In Washington, the circus crew showed up without anyone signing the required contract paperwork in advance. The circus agents provided insurance information only when pressed, and fairgrounds officials said the information was questionable, the BBB said. In addition, two checks submitted to cover a deposit turned out to be written on a closed account.
The BBB said the circus had used the names Kingford Circus, Nevada Traveling Circus and others, with a drop-box address in Las Vegas. The contact for any of the circus names was listed as Carol King or Judy K, with two Nevada phone numbers.
Similar information was offered to the Grant County Fairgrounds last week. The fairgrounds originally was told that the Kingford or Kingsford Circus was coming, but by week's end the circus was described as Circo Latino or - on the tickets - "Circus Latina Armeicas."
Contacted by the Blue Mountain Eagle, the circus' representative identified as "Judy" said Circo Latino and the Kingford Circus are not connected - even though they have the same address and contact information.
"I represent a lot of circuses," she said.
Asked what went wrong in Washington state, she said she wasn't sure but that it was a "huge mess."
"I don't know what happened there. I've never had any negative feedback," she said.
She said Circo Latino is on a national tour. However, when asked where it would stop before and after John Day, she said she didn't know.
The circus was billed as a troup of performers - acrobats, jugglers, magicians, a Hannah Montana impersonator - and a dog act called "Cartoon poodles." It did not have exotic animals, she said.
Posters for the circus began appearing in windows in John Day more than a week ago. Tickets were listed at $10, although the promoters said coupons for discounts and kids' admission would be available at local merchants.
Jan Margosian, consumer information coordinator for the Oregon Department of Justice, said circuses are not required to register in any special way with the state. However, they do need to follow local and state laws, and they should be registered with the Secretary of State Corporations Division to conduct business in Oregon unless they are operating under the sponsorship of another organization, she said. A check of current records showed no registration for the Kingford or Latino circus names.
Zan Deery, communications and investigations officer for the BBB in Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Montana, said the main issue is the liability that would go back to the fairgrounds, if anything should go wrong.
Margosian said operators of fairgrounds and other venues can protect themselves in such cases by getting their money up front, or at least a deposit, and by verifying the proof of liability insurance.
Dubai firms buy 20 per cent of Montreal circus troupe Cirque du soleil
MONTREAL - The founder of the Cirque du soleil insisted Wednesday that he is still in control of the world-renowned circus troupe after selling one-fifth of the business to two companies owned by the Dubai government.
"The Cirque is not sold and I am still the captain of the boat," Guy Laliberte told reporters during a conference call where he was grilled with questions suggesting the sale was the first step in letting the Montreal-based entertainment giant slip into foreign hands.
A visibly frustrated Laliberte stressed that's not in the cards.
"I don't know why you're thinking I'm selling Cirque du soleil to the world. I'm not selling Cirque du soleil. I'm giving up 20 per cent of the company."
There have been rumours of the Cirque being sold outright before. The organization has said it is always being approached by potential suitors but never bitten.
The deal announced Wednesday gives 10 per cent to property developer Nakheel and 10 per cent to the Istithmar World Capital investment company.
Both are part of Dubai World, a diversified holding company owned by the government of Dubai.
"We didn't need to do this partnership," Laliberte said in the call from Tokyo. "We did it for strategic reasons."
The Cirque boss said the organization is in robust financial health and this alliance makes it even stronger, giving it a foothold in another part of the world.
The Cirque is one of the world's largest entertainment businesses, with annual sales of more than US $700 million and almost 10 million visitors per year.
Laliberte said the Cirque decided to partner with the Dubai companies because of positive business relationships in the past.
Dubai World holds a 10 per cent stake in the MGM Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, where the Cirque has a show, and Nakheel and the Cirque announced a 15-year partnership in May 2007 to develop a permanent show on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.
The Cirque will soon open a show production office, ticket company and equipment and design firm in Dubai.
David Jackson, chief executive of Istithmar, said in a statement that the Cirque deal marks his company's first foray into live entertainment, which he described as "key to our media focus."
"Cirque du soleil represents the ideal platform for Istithmar World to fuse its strong investment network into a highly focused and dynamic institution, with tremendous scope for growth across markets," he said.
He pointed out that Dubai is a global tourist hub and one of the fastest-growing entertainment and media markets in the world, representing a huge opportunity for the Cirque.
Laliberte said he has always believed global expansion was key to the success of the Cirque, which was founded 24 years ago in Montreal.
But some reporters questioned whether the Dubai deal would put the Cirque in the same position as such companies as Alcan and Molson, which were taken over by foreign interests.
"I would not do a transaction like that if I did not believe it will have a beneficial result for the community that I have been living in," Laliberte said, adding he doesn't have a problem with foreign investment if it creates jobs and opportunities for more projects.
The Dubai investors will not have any artistic input into the Cirque.
The Cirque is currently producing 18 shows around the world for this year, including new permanently based shows in Macau, Tokyo and Las Vegas.
"The Cirque is not sold and I am still the captain of the boat," Guy Laliberte told reporters during a conference call where he was grilled with questions suggesting the sale was the first step in letting the Montreal-based entertainment giant slip into foreign hands.
A visibly frustrated Laliberte stressed that's not in the cards.
"I don't know why you're thinking I'm selling Cirque du soleil to the world. I'm not selling Cirque du soleil. I'm giving up 20 per cent of the company."
There have been rumours of the Cirque being sold outright before. The organization has said it is always being approached by potential suitors but never bitten.
The deal announced Wednesday gives 10 per cent to property developer Nakheel and 10 per cent to the Istithmar World Capital investment company.
Both are part of Dubai World, a diversified holding company owned by the government of Dubai.
"We didn't need to do this partnership," Laliberte said in the call from Tokyo. "We did it for strategic reasons."
The Cirque boss said the organization is in robust financial health and this alliance makes it even stronger, giving it a foothold in another part of the world.
The Cirque is one of the world's largest entertainment businesses, with annual sales of more than US $700 million and almost 10 million visitors per year.
Laliberte said the Cirque decided to partner with the Dubai companies because of positive business relationships in the past.
Dubai World holds a 10 per cent stake in the MGM Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, where the Cirque has a show, and Nakheel and the Cirque announced a 15-year partnership in May 2007 to develop a permanent show on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.
The Cirque will soon open a show production office, ticket company and equipment and design firm in Dubai.
David Jackson, chief executive of Istithmar, said in a statement that the Cirque deal marks his company's first foray into live entertainment, which he described as "key to our media focus."
"Cirque du soleil represents the ideal platform for Istithmar World to fuse its strong investment network into a highly focused and dynamic institution, with tremendous scope for growth across markets," he said.
He pointed out that Dubai is a global tourist hub and one of the fastest-growing entertainment and media markets in the world, representing a huge opportunity for the Cirque.
Laliberte said he has always believed global expansion was key to the success of the Cirque, which was founded 24 years ago in Montreal.
But some reporters questioned whether the Dubai deal would put the Cirque in the same position as such companies as Alcan and Molson, which were taken over by foreign interests.
"I would not do a transaction like that if I did not believe it will have a beneficial result for the community that I have been living in," Laliberte said, adding he doesn't have a problem with foreign investment if it creates jobs and opportunities for more projects.
The Dubai investors will not have any artistic input into the Cirque.
The Cirque is currently producing 18 shows around the world for this year, including new permanently based shows in Macau, Tokyo and Las Vegas.
Is the Circus Dead?
After having several recenct conversations with circus fans, performers, and a couple producers on the future of the circus industry I have decided that the future of the circus is bleak. Not because of animal rights activists, other forms of entertainment, or even high gas prices but because some of the people who make up and love the circus industry have already declared it dead. If you believe something is dead your not going to try to save it. If you at least believe it is alive or even dying there is still a chance for you to save it. The circus is an endangered specie, and any endangered specie can be saved. We all need to realize the circus is still alive and we need to find out ways to save it from going extinct. The sideshow for the most part lost it's fight for survival let's not let the same thing happen to the circus industry.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Odds and Ends
So I'm a little late I apologize. Things have been going very well here at very well. We have had several straw houses. We are in Morgantown, West Virgina right now. At the moment the Ayala Famiily Perch Act is on, it's refreshing to see such an old act still performing.
Kyle Gale has visited the show several times recently. On Thursday him and I went to the Pittsbugh Zoo. They had a baby Amur Siberian Tiger and two African Elephants.
Heres a couple pics from Lewis and Clark.
Kyle Gale has visited the show several times recently. On Thursday him and I went to the Pittsbugh Zoo. They had a baby Amur Siberian Tiger and two African Elephants.
Heres a couple pics from Lewis and Clark.
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