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| Corbis |
| Animals in entertainment are not having fun. |
By Natalie Ragan
The sounds of laughter and delight fill a Fort Worth, Texas stadium in which a crowd of onlookers watch as a seemingly happy monkey dressed as a cowboy rides on the back of a bounding dog. The monkey does classic cowboy moves and the audience “oohs” and “ahhs” as he almost loses his balance several times. This video was played on CNN as news anchors shared a chuckle over the “rodeo monkey” who seemed to be having a ball.
But this monkey was not having fun and neither is any other wild animal forced to live its life as a subject of entertainment for humans. Whether it is a monkey dressed up as a cowboy or an elephant forced to perform tricks in a circus, wild animals in the entertainment industry lead lonely and miserable lives.
Snatched from the Wild
Globally, many wild animals are still removed from the wild for entertainment purposes. Many times, an animal’s entire wild family is killed in order to obtain one juvenile. In the case of orangutans and other great apes, families and groups become very defensive when they sense potential danger to one of their loved ones, and they often pay with their lives for trying to protect them. Whether bred in captivity or wild-caught, animals in entertainment are too often subjected to stress, isolation, substandard care, and abuse.
Subjected to Cruelty
Taking wild animals out of their natural environments and forcing them to live lives as performers in circuses, film and television, commercials, and for other entertainment purposes is cruel and demeaning. Scientific evidence has shown that wild animals such as elephants and primates possess highly developed emotional complexity and it is difficult to satisfy their psychological and social needs in a captive setting. In addition, many animals in entertainment are subjected to questionable and often abusive training.
Captive wild animals whose entertainment careers have expired are rarely given the life-long care they need. Instead, they are often sold to private owners, to canned hunts, or substandard “sanctuaries.” There the animals are condemned to face unacceptable threats to their well-being, and in the case of canned hunts, an abhorrent form of death.
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| Corbis |
| Condemed to a life of misery. |
Public at Risk
Using wild animals to entertain people also jeopardizes public safety. Most people remember the horrifying incident in 2003 in which Roy Horn of “Siegfried and Roy,” the famous entertainment act in Las Vegas known for using big cats, was attacked on stage by his white tiger, Montecore. Siegfried and Roy were reported to have defended the tiger by saying this attack was not malicious. Malicious or not, and even if they are raised by humans from their juvenile days as Montecore was, wild animals are wild and should not be expected to act like house pets in public settings.
Help Stop Exploitation
To help solve the problem of the exploitation of animals for entertainment, avoid patronizing any facility, store or establishment that uses wild animals for entertainment. Don’t visit roadside zoos that keep animals in small cages and avoid touristy spots in which wild animals are used as photo props. Finally, don't spend money on entertainment venues or products that exploit wild animals and do not support the use of wild animals in commercials, televisions shows, movies or circuses. When people start realizing that so many wild animals used for entertainment live bleak lives of abuse, perhaps they will stop being so entertaining.
