Memories of WHERE ELEPHANTS WEEP
The fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath and humans have no advantage over the animals" Ecc 3:19
ANIMAL CIRCUS
BRIGHT LIGHTS - THE DARKNESS BEHIND THEM
The image that we know of is what circus promoters want us to believe because the circus would lose all its appeal if the truth was revealed. The circus as we know it, flash, glitter, cotton candy, clowns, adrenaline pumping animal acts, represents no life for animals. It turns the highly intelligent animals into sad, neurotic and often dangerous shadows of what their real life was supposed to be. Naturally all circuses claim they love and adore their animals and take the most excellent care of them. This just isn't supported by too many facts. So, it is a lie.
When we applaud to wild animals while performing their acts we do not see them caged and chained in darkness, denied sunshine and fresh air and freedom. We don't see torture,, chains and broken spirits, unbearable living conditions, their stress and fear. We do not know water and food are irregularly given, being rationed to certain periods of the day so that the animals won't "mess up" the area. Monkeys are kept in cages which are so small that they cannot stand up and have sometimes been driven to bite off one another's fingers. The wild animals are forced to act, desperately hiding fear and pain. They act because they are even more afraid of what will happen to them if they don't perform their tricks. We don't know what awaits them after the show. And during the training. Many of them have their teeth or claws removed or drugged to make them manageable. By using direct physical force such as whips, goads, spikes, heat, muzzles or electric prods, the animals are made to repeat the required movements until finally all that is needed is the relevant trigger. Elephant " hooks" are used to control the animal by pulling behind the ear, which is a particularly sensitive area, pulling a leg forward or jabbing it under the tongue for the sit up and beg position.
Then we question why circus animals display strange behaviours such as pacing, bar biting, self-mutilation, head rolling, rocking, licking, neck twisting, vomiting, self-clutching and swaying from side to side. Many of us may think that these are natural behaviours but they are not. These are signs of early mental illness or madness. If you think there is a happy ending to the lives of these animals then you are wrong again. When an animal can no longer perform reasonably well, it may be sold to other circuses, zoos, game farms (to be shot for "recreation" or for exotic meat), or laboratories where their lives continue with torture or boredom.
So when you hear an animal circus is coming to your town ask yourself: Is it really worth? You have the power to show them that you are aware of the scenes behind.
In 1940, a member of the Ringling Brothers Circus was quoted as saying of circuses: " We bring them laugh and amusement. That's what it is for them, a show, because the public doesn't know what's really going on. The time is ripe to fool the people; they are bored, uneducated and naïve."
Are we still so naive? Are we still ready to allow animal suffering?
It only takes one person to change this - you.
I was thinking to write a tribute in memory to all circus animals that have died for our entertainment, but something made me search for more as if I knew there is more to tell, that someone from beyond wants me to talk about what happened a long time ago. So I searched and searched, it was the same inner need as with Little Mac. Then I found her. And my heart is broken again.
The Biggest Lynching in History
A TRIBUTE TO MARY
What you are about to read is a true story. Although some may say why one should bother with what happened so long ago, to me the time and place are irrelevant when it goes for animal abuse and suffering. And this story is more than just about abuse. It is tragic, absurd, excessive. It is another story of betrayal, human ignorance and stupidity; it is the story of one of the most barbaric acts animal cruelty ever committed. Mary was one of the most intelligent mammals, brutally taken from her natural habitat and her herd. Mary was a circus animal. She was an elephant.
BORN FREE
Many years ago deep in the bush of Asia an elephant was born.
Moments later, the excited members of the herd crowded around the newborn, smelling it, helping it stand, affectionately stroking it with their trunks and carefully directing it to its mother's teats for her first suckle.
It's no small matter bringing a baby elephant into the world. First, the mother carries it nearly 22 months - the longest pregnancy of any land animal, not to mention the size of the calf. To help mother during a birth, other females often act as "midwives". A mother doesn't mind, elephants are extremely social beings, the job of raising a baby doesn't belong to her only; the entire herd gets into act.
Baby Mary had already begun to learn what it meant to be an elephant, she already formed unique relationships with her family, she learned to rumble, squeal and vocalize, she learned the delight of dust and mud baths that protected her surprisingly delicate skin.
The herd lived a peaceful life, wandering about the open plains and through the bushes. They could push down large trees if they wanted, as they were very strong. Not many beasts bothered them; after all they were the biggest of all the animals, the real queens of jungle. When a potential predator such as a lion or a tiger threatened the calf, the adults formed a defensive circle around to protect her. In this way they were assuring that their offspring would have the best possible chance of survival. Mary knew they would give their own lives just to keep her well and safe. Mary was indeed a happy baby elephant.
What Mary didn't know was that there were also other predators, far more dangerous and evil, the so-called poachers, already hiding behind the dense bushes, watching the herd, counting the young ones, loading their guns. And as the sun set over the forest and the herd hurried to the river for a quick bath before returning to the safety of the woods, the killing started.
In their desperate attempt to save Mary the females formed a circle again, but it was too late. They killed them one by one, until only Mary was left. The hunters were a little disappointed as they wanted to get tusks from the males, but those were more careful and wouldn't approach the river, they were only watching from afar. Watching in horror and swaying.
Early in the morning the sun witnessed the most tragic picture. Mary was lying in a cage tied with ropes, terrified and confused, all around there were mutilated carcasses of her mother and other females of the herd. .
And when they picked up the cage she tried to stand up but would fall back with a heart wrenching scream. And there was an echo from the other bank of the river, seemingly louder and even more painful. Elephants are known to grieve.
The so-called humans who had killed the elephants didn't care they had killed all the herd until none was left, they would get money for the meat and hides and sooner or later they would get to the male elephants too, they would find and kill them for a few pounds of ivory to satisfy human vanity in some distant land. They also knew that people who buy ivory didn't mind either, because wearing ivory or putting sculptures on the shelves was and still is in fashion and makes them feel important before their friends. People just like to show off with anything that does not belong to them.
As for Mary they already had a plan. She was young, still a baby, it would be easy to teach her some tricks. They would sell her to a circus; there were many requests for baby elephants from countries on the other side of the planet.
So that night Mary ceased to be an elephant that God meant her to be. She was to become a part of entertainment, she was to be trained and perform in the saddest show of all -- an Animal Circus.
25 years later, somewhere in Tennessee.....
Early that day a traveling circus came to a small mining town. Sparks, the owner, was proud of his circus people and animals. He offered a lot - educated sea lions, bears, monkeys, powdered dogs and humans, clowns, the man who walks upon his head, and he offered elephants. One of them, a huge animal, his claim to fame -- the star of the circus, was a thirty year captive Indian elephant of an unbelievable talent known as Big Mary. Mary was featured prominently on advertisement posters as gentle and intelligent, a true exotic crowd pleaser and people, especially children impatiently waited for the first performance.
Just a day earlier Eldridge, a local young man spotted one of these posters. There was a free post for elephant keeper and despite his inexperience the owner hired him for feeding Mary between shows. And just a day later he realized what a fatal mistake he had made. Not for the keeper only, but also for Mary. Within two days of Eldridge being hired, both he and the elephant would be dead.
What happened next has been debated for years, but the most reliable version of the story is that between the shows the elephants walked through town in a parade to a watering ditch. Eldridge guided Mary, but had been warned to nudge her gently and not to provoke her as she had two abscessed teeth which caused her much pain. According to eyewitness accounts sometime during the procession Mary suddenly stopped. She had spotted a piece of watermelon on the ground and was reaching down to grab it with her trunk. Elephants love fruit. And elephants in circuses are often hungry. Eldridge, who was riding on Mary's back, whacked her across the side of the jaw with his bull hook, a stick with a hook on its end. In front of dozens of horrified witnesses, the enraged elephant seized Eldridge in her trunk and flung him through a wooden soft drink stand.
Then she stomped over and, with her massive foot, crushed his head. The man died on the spot.
THE VERDICT
The keeper's death resulted in mass panic. People ran for their lives, screaming, but the elephant never charged the crowd. But what was even more frightening was the chant coming from the crowd. Anger had burned away the fear in many of the onlookers. Now their voices rang out in unison: "Kill the elephant!"
The town sheriff quickly "arrested" Mary and staked her by the county jail, where more onlookers gathered around her, yelling at her, threatening her, some even tried to shoot her with a gun, not realizing that the thick hide would protect her. Then some smart town leaders put their heads together, choosing between several options how to punish Murderous Mary. In just a few hours nobody called her Big Mary anymore; in their eyes she was a murderer, a killer, a law breaker, an imminent threat to humanity.
Some suggested shooting but then there was no gun strong enough to kill an elephant. Some thought the punishment should be a warning to all circus beasts, so she should be hooked between two engines and dismembered, a few preferred electrocution....
Some claim that Sparks knew very well that elephants could be killed very easily -- even with a shotgun. All you have to do is to fire into their ear canal. But bloodthirsty citizens wanted more; they demanded public execution with other elephants present so that they too would learn a life lesson: Never kill a man! And what people wanted they should be given.
Sparks knew that word spread quickly, he had to sacrifice his cash cow or there would be no more shows for him. So he would use her execution by making it public, he would bring other elephants along and maybe even earn some money. He would make the best show ever.
There was no trial, of course, animals do not need advocates. No defense was offered for Mary; no evidence, nothing about the circumstances; no judge passed sentence on her, seeking justice. So without the benefit of fair trial the guilty party was sentenced to death.
Finally the brave men agreed with the verdict: Mary was to be executed. She was to be hanged and everyone was invited to witness the execution. It was a dull week and people needed something to liven up their days.
And why did Mary have to die? There are many "whys" in these cloudy issues. Due to my researches the answer is simple: She was hungry and just wanted a piece of fruit.
MARY
Meanwhile Mary was brought to a barn where she was to spend her last night. Not far from her the Sparks show was going on, she could hear clapping and singing along with the clowns, she knew that when dogs showed their skills it was elephants turn to perform. Elephants are very intelligent beings, they are affectionate and sensitive, they play, grieve, they have incredible memory, they laugh, they fear. They vocalize pain and distress; they call out for help, using sounds well below the range of human hearing. They communicate with each other using these low-frequency vibrations. And they sway, mostly under captive conditions and when in danger. Swaying is their way of showing distress and fear. And while Mary was swaying forth and back in that barn the elephants seemingly sensing that something was wrong stopped performing and trumpeted loudly in answer. According to historical articles on the Sparks circus, it took quite some time to calm them down, mostly with sticks and bull hooks again.
Nobody knows how Mary spent her last night. Elephants are very sensitive and can foresee danger. Mary knew she was going to die, but she never knew why. I believe that her last thoughts were back to her early childhood, to that short time when she had experienced the love of her herd, to the place where she was born and where she should have stayed, to that brief years when she lived a life of an elephant.
Nobody sensed the true depth of her despair, her heartache, no one knew how she yearned to roam free just once more through the Asian forest, in the same forest where she watched her mother and aunts slaughtered in the golden sunset by the river, no one heard the sound of her muffled tears in the dark of that night, no one noticed her sadness realizing how cruelly life passed her by.
And why would they. After all she was just an elephant.
THE EXECUTION
On that dreary morning it was raining. Several eyewitnesses claim to have spotted Mary chained outside the Sparks tent, all the time nervously swaying back and forth, undoubtedly fearing what was to come. In an attempt to calm her Spark decided to have her walk to the derrick with the other elephants, trunk to tail, like they did mostly every day. But Mary didn't appear to be fooled for, she hesitated several times and trumpeted loudly, her big ears nervously flapping. And again her mates trumpeted in response to her.
The crane used for lifting locomotives was already there, waiting.
Sparks kept his word. He promised the greatest show ever and so all good citizens came to witness justice to be done. Crowds from the surrounding hills came into town, swelling already overcrowded streets. They even brought kids with them to show them how well their justice was working.
Like all really good executions, Mary's was botched right at the start. A chain was looped around her neck, and from there to the boom of the derrick. The crowd chanted "kill her". When her rear leg was chained to the side of the derrick other elephants began to rumble and sway again. Now the chain was put around her neck and Mary began to struggle. The mob got ecstatic. - Hang her, kill the beast, they screamed.
They hoisted her finally but the chain broke, apparently because someone forgot to unchain her back leg from the derrick. Mary fell, already gasping for air, the chain around her neck was tight. When the chain broke, she fell to the ground with a sickening crunch, her hip horribly broken; there was reluctance from the crowd. -- What are you waiting for? Hang her! You see, her guilt and her punishment were taken for granted. Still not sure what Mary might be able to do, good people took some precaution and moved some yards away from the scene.
With a broken hip, Big Mary was hardly running anywhere nor was she a danger. In fact, she sat on her great haunches in much pain or maybe just a numb shock. Her eyes filled with tears, her look expressing terrifying confusion.
Soon a larger chain was placed around her neck, her leg was unchained, she was hoisted again, and her tragic and unique life ended after about fifteen minutes of suspension and suffocation.
As she was lifted into the air, a crew was working using a steam shovel to dig a grave in the rail yard where she would be put once she was dead. A crew was digging and the mob was cheering. No marker was placed and the exact location of her grave has been lost to time. Many versions of this story have been passed around but one thing is certain, Mary was hung by the neck until dead on a rainy, foggy and chilly morning and forever engraved a place for that small mountain community in the history books. Reaching for that watermelon sentenced her to death.
There's a skeleton now in a train yard somewhere in Tennessee.
Although the real world was denied to her, she lives on, maybe her presence is still felt there. Maybe some still feel the bite of links around her neck, the mass of great weight parting her noble spines, blanking the world of the living, passing onto that other sphere of the dead. Some may still hear cheering, screaming, swearing on justice. Wherever she resides now, she has never forgotten what the people of that small mining town did to her, how they punished her for the murder she never committed. After all she only wanted that piece of fruit. Had the keeper not hit her with that sharp thing she would have never pushed him away.
ELEPHANTS IN CIRCUSES -- A LIFETIME OF MISERY
All animals forced to perform deserve support and help, but it seems these huge elephants suffer even more. Elephants in circuses live sad lives where they are deprived of all their basic needs: live vegetation for food, family relationships, and freedom of movement.
Their natural instincts are repressed in captivity and they live a miserable life in chains, often mistreated. Elephant training is almost always based on fear and intimidation. Trainers must break the spirit of these magnificent animals in order to control them. It is not uncommon for an elephant to be tied down and beaten for days at a time while being trained to "perform." During their training and throughout their lives in captivity, elephants are beaten with clubs, shocked with electric prods, stabbed with sharp hooks, and whipped. Many people assume that since elephants have such tough skin, they cannot be hurt easily. This is not true; in fact, elephants have very sensitive skin. Elephant trainers know this and use an instrument called a bull hook on the sensitive areas of an elephant's skin, such as around their eyes and behind their knees and ears. Because of the enormous size and strength of elephants, most trainers rely on chains and fear to make them obey. Most elephants spend almost their whole lives in chains. Aggression then builds up. Elephants have a long memory. These wonderful animals body size is a particular burden in captivity. They doze in boredom, miserable and stifled with their head and trunk swinging monotonously or weaving.
There is no educational value in seeing these once proud animals in an unnatural environment. The circus portrays itself in a fun, loving light. The truth behind that is the inexplicable cruelty hundreds of animals must endure for human entertainment.
There is nothing to be learnt from seeing an elephant struggling to stand on its head while assailed by loud music under the glare of circus lights. The idea of publicly humiliating an animal to prove that man is capable of this sort of dominance is no fun. In fact, it is sad, depressing and irresponsible. We can learn far more from the excellent TV programmes which do not interfere with animals in the wild. Children should be encouraged to respect all animal life in their natural surroundings. And those, who are naturally fond of animals, would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the circus if they knew of the suffering these animals endure for a fleeting moment of the so--called amusement.
It is this world we have created that makes me ashamed of what we are, or at least of what we've become. We simply cannot allow the elephant or any other animal to continue to be used in circuses or any other "entertainment" capacity. We must not allow the elephant to disappear. All too much has been taken from the elephant by humanity. The culling of herds for ivory must be stopped. It's up to us.
An ironic footnote to this story is that Tennessee now has its own sanctuary, specially created for Asian elephants. The Elephant Sanctuary contains 100 acres of designated grounds for sick, old and needy elephants to roam in peace.
Perhaps if such an organization had been around in Mary's time, it could have provided an alternative to the gruesome spectacle that took place that rainy September day and, somewhat unfairly forever linked Tennessee and "Murderous Mary" in American history. Or it may have been Mary herself who inspired them.
Dear Mary,
I give this pledge of love and compassion to you. I look in your picture, I look in your eyes and see the wisdom of your soul, I see no hatred but only deep sorrow and it fills my heart with the same sorrow. What have they done to you, Mary. How could they have cheered seeing you up there, dying in agony and in so much pain. The more I know about animal abuse the more I am ashamed of my own race.
It's strange how life turns out sometimes and what you thought would never happen comes to pass. It's also amazing how one animal can touch a human's heart the way you touched mine. Because your cruel story touched me beyond the words. You, Laika, Little Mac and so many other innocent victims never did anything wrong and still had to pay the ultimate price. You all died in indescribable horror.
I came across your story the same way I came across Mac's. So again there must have been be a reason and I will try to look it that way. Even if we all walk different paths in different times you all are just another proof that everyone is connected here and beyond and that we all go through the same circle of life and death.
It seems that the majority of people missed the point why God created you. Animals should be treated with respect, protected and nurtured in the knowledge that it is you that are closest to knowing the wills and ways of the Father. Unless we all learn not to take what is not ours whether from person, a pet or the wilderness then little will be achieved. There are things that were not earned nor given to us. So they are not ours. Nature is not FOR us, it is a PART of us. Animals are part of worldly family. We are here to love and protect you and not to abuse you, torture you, kill you.
Rest peacefully, amazing animal. I hope you have met all members of your herd. I hope you roam in the greenest forest and drink from heavenly silver streams. Where you are now, you will never lack watermelons. You will never be chained again; nobody will ever hurt you or hit you with that hook. All I can give you is online resting home. And I hope that with this tribute I am giving you back what they took away from you on that day. I am giving you back your dignity, your natural elegance, your right to live on in our memories and the right to be an elephant. And I am giving you all my respect.
I wish so much I could give you more.
The reality behind the scenes
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ck_5j24QQo&feature=email
New hope for elephants
http://www.youtube.com/user/elephantsanctuarytn
Please also visit Jessie- the unwanted horse, LAIKA DIES IN SPACE, Mac, Peppy, Puck and WHITE DOG DOWN THE STREET.
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