As mentioned in the past, in 1976 after being in the circus business for only a couple of years, and still considered a townie/towner I mentioned to a person who later became a dear friend that I wondered if the things I had been reading and hearing about would affect us. He laughed and assured me that it wouldn't, as the circus had been doing it there way for 100's of years. He then when into a history of 6 generations of his family tree, and at the end of the tale, I felt assured that it would pass this industry over, and was only meant for other. Boy did I get fooled. I can only patch by saying, I was young new to this life and was looking for valid guidance.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Why is our industry still having problems with AR 36 years later?
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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In the the mid 70's my dad said a U.S.D.A. inspector came out to the circus was very informative helped do the paper work for license. He said "at the time just didn't think much about it and even let it expire the following year." The inspector came out helped renew it again and told them. You need to keep this in good standing in the future. I guess the general consenus is that nobody took it to serious at that time.
Mike,
That's a patch. Maybe your father was being bated?
Wade
Federeal regulation and "AR problems" are two very different issues. Regulatory issues goes back to the Lacey Act in the 1960's and the original little enforced AWA. Altough the AWA is a "standard" we live with now, form the mid-70's through the early 1990's CITES had far more of an impact on the animal business. I don'r remember the Feds being particularly hard to get along with in the '70's when we had to deal with regulation of crocs and alligators for the first time.
AR on the other hand will ALWAYS be a problem, because it isn't about stanards or animal welfare, it's an ideology that sees no role for animals in circuses or entertainment, and no legitimate role for zoos. There's no compromise with that kind of absolutist position. Genuine AR advocates dislike even people who are completely committed to compliance with regulations and to animal welfare. A trainer is a trainer and all trainers are evil.
Ben,
There has always been an issue with any new regulation, whether it be perceived good or bad, as there has been an issue with "being told what to do."
What steps did we as an industry take to show them that not all trainers are trainers, and some trainers are bad?
Wade
Wade - if the situation is the same over there as it is here, I can say that it wouldn't matter what steps you took to educate AR people you would NEVER have got them on side - or even prepared to listen to us. As Ben said, theirs is an idealogical position and idealism is way out front of realism in their little minds. Until Peter Singer comes up with some new gospel for them WE can never change their minds.
What we should have been doing [and possibly would have been doing if we had realised that people were going to start taking these zealots seriously] was to educate the legislators.
And, I know that I've said this before, until we developed acceptable Standards in this country we were on a hiding to nothing. Now we've got an effective weapon.
What's taking you all so long over there????
I agree with Ben, I've had several different conversations about trying to please the ar groups. The thing about it is this. No measure you take is going to please them. Eliminate tethers put up awnings,misters,24 hr. grooms on the spot. Point is they don't want them in the entertainment industry. We as whole should have come and be further along with regulations/standards might have prevented some things that has bit us on the butt in the past.
Mike,
What is not to agree with? Every animal industry deals with them and their ideals. What is the only one whining about being picked on, and pointing to other industry's as examples of doing it worse. What industry tried to run from it, or make excuses for what was happening? I got into this thing of ours with this issue around my ankles, you, Casey, my son Adam, and others are now ass deep in it. Maybe it is time to start patting a new generation on the back, address where/why it was started and look to the future instead of falling back on some faulty tradition of hide/protect. Try setting a standard, if you want to feel the wrath of God. Trust me, I know what I am talking about.
Wade
Wade
Steve,
What is taking so long, is I asked you 3 weeks ago for documentation of how many new shows started because of this new standard, and how many that had closed reopened, and how big of an industry did this new standard aid, and was there any elimination of individuals in the setting of the standard or did they all meet/exceed the standards. If I have published documentation of it's effectiveness I might be able to sway some folks here.
Wade
Wade, on the one poste I was pushing the boundries a little negative intent, to see what the standard/criteria was for the blog..lol
Wade - sorry. I must have missed that. I was in Darwin for a week trying to get a pair of tigers to mate - successfully as it turned out. [Well they mated - don't know how successful the mating will be!]
Then I've spent the last week or so persuading the doctor that hospitals are for sick folks and yes, I've got pneumonia but I'm not THAT sick!
You've probably noticed by the increase in traffic that the head is now starting to work again even if the body is not quite ready to go outside and do the real work. Thank heavens for a wonder-wife.
End of excuses!
After the Standards became law several operators dropped out. This was not neccesarily a bad thing. Some dropped out because they could not or would not meet the Standards. Some dropped out because the introduction of the Standards coincided pretty much with what would have been their retirement anyway and they were unwilling to reinvest in the industry for what would have been a limited return. And some dropped out because they were yet to enter the 20th century, let alone the 21st century and so the whole thing was incomprehensible to them. To quite a few of these people this was all my fault. So be it.
Due to generational changes as well as the new Standards, the industry was always going to change.
What has happened since is interesting.
The shows that dropped cat acts, for example, are finding that their potential audiences are DEMANDING them back. Because of the Standards though, big cats now take time to look after and present properly. A lot of these operators still fondly recall the days when you could run a bit of rope along the front of a cage and get a tent hand to throw some butcher's rejects to the cats every couple of days and rake out the cages every week or so. They don't know how to organise proper levels of animal husbandry. But they are business people and their audience wants a cat act - what to do? Hire one of course! Not only does the act contractor have to do all the compliance work [including quite a bit of paperwork] but, if times are a bit tough, you can lay off the act and it costs you nothing. Why didn't someone think of this before????
In peak times [school holidays etc] I could book out 2 or 3 acts. Since I started breaking in this act another bloke has started sourcing young cats and will put together an act and a member of a circus family who has the time to spare has approached me to breed cats for him to train.
So the emphasis has changed in this country from show owned acts which need to be supported 52 weeks each year, to independently owned acts operated by specialists who do not have to worry about the million and one other things that are involved in operating the whole show. As I've been there, I'm really enjoying this!
I'm not sure that any of the foregoing will sway anyone over there. As I understand it - we've now reached the situation that you've pretty much always had in the States.
What might sway those who want to continue in this very honourable profession is the knowledge that the introduction of the Standards have weeded out some of the bums from the business, raised our profile and respect with legislators and public alike and taken a lot of the sting out of the AR attacks. It has also made our profession less attractive to cowboys and lairs - from within and without the business - because now you have to WORK to develop and maintain the standards of presentation and husbandry that are acceptable in 2008. So less low grade competition.
Steve,
One important way my thinking has changed in the past 20 years is the private ownership of acts as opposed to company owned animals. I have seen way to many animals put into the middle of things that are nothing to do with them. I have also seen unscrupulous unknowledgeable producers treat them like a machine, and give the keys to 10 different people not caring if they can drive it or not.
I wish you luck with your standard, and I who consider my self a "tweener" between old school and new school am doing everything I can to get the new and MOST IMPORTANT generation to work out that standard and hopefully have a long and productive life.
Wade
A worthy ambition and I will help in any way that I can.
There were good bits in the old school and there are good bits in the new school and there are rotten bits in both.
Steering a course to get the BEST out of both will not be easy but our animals must have that BEST outcome.
Like you, my knowledge and attitudes are still evolving and will do till the day that I die.
The beauty about the Standards is that the private/company ownership situation does not permit anyone from escaping their obligations. The buck has a clearly defined stopping point. This clearly defined status of liability has, single handedly, cleared some of the less scrupulous operators out of the business.
You can't achieve any of this without some sort of industry representative body - legislators hate talking to individuals. From what I am now reading on your Blog, OABA does not seem to have a strong enough circus section to achieve this. A group of like minded individuals may have to set up an organisation, develop a set of rules under which to operate, bury their differences and expand their similarities for the good of the whole industry and the animals that rely on us.
PS: Just read your earlier post - yes whoever starts working out some Standards will feel the wrath of [maybe not God] but certainly the wrath of other industry figures for the rest of their life.
They will need more nuts than your Nic to see this through but they will be able to do it with a clear conscience knowing they have done something very worthwhile for the animals ...... without which a circus is just a cirque.
Steve,
There are so many truly terrified of speaking out. Look at all of the questions left unanswered on this and other blogs. I wager if you were sitting in Showfolks with a thousand people they would all have an opinion/agreement but publicly stating that opinion and putting your name to it is scary. It eliminates the option of saying, "I never said that" at a later date. The word hypocrite seems most appropriate.
Wade
"Hypocrite" is a very appropriate word for some of our leaders unfortunately.
Only this week Robert Perry sent me a copy of a newspaper article about one of our circuses over here. The man who owns the circus has been looking for young lions and tigers to train for an act for their circus. At the same time his wife was interviewed by the local paper where they were showing and was reported as saying " Other shows have animals but nobody at our circus likes the stress, the suffering the animals are under. We prefer animals to be free and our circus has enough human talent"
His publicity handouts say things like - "No sad tigers or tired old elephants at this show".
That's not just hypocrisy - thats a bloody disgrace. He won't be getting any animals from me.
The good news is that these hypocrites have been doing lousy business all season.
Like I said in an earlier post - whoever gets the ball rolling over there will need more nuts than Nic! But the ball will start rolling with only 2 or 3 of you. [Don't you have any mates?!!! LOL]. Once you start it rolling, some of the others will join you and some of the others will fight you - but at the end of the day the animals will win.
Steve,
I am hoping for everybody to be involved in something like that. For a few to split off and do their own thing, smacks too much of that phony deal Cirque Federation that is smelling things up right now. And if the rest are still going to operate, it doesn't make sense.
They hypocrisies involving animals and the people working with them knows no bounds in this industry, but your countryman truly takes the cake, Steve Just like your mate writing your bio, spoken history, not fact checked can be mighty grand.
Wade
PS: The bastards not an Aussie - he's a European who migrated here because he couldn't get a feed in his own country!!!
He's no countryman of mine!!!
Steve,
Sorry mate. We have had a great number of those here also. Again how is a standard organization valid, if the likes of those are allowed to operate. Taking a one of a kind act, like Ursula Bottchers in for a limited time is one thing, but to go in under the disguise of being supremely qualified, the likes of which is not available anywhere, and then scramming with the money that should be in a countryman's pocket makes any honorable organization suffer.
Wade
Mate - you'll never regulate a lying, two-faced hypocrite into a decent human being - ever.
However, no matter what the scumbag's character is, he'll HAVE to look after his animals properly under the Standards.
We have had a couple of "take the money and run" operators here over the years. One, in particular is a local.
The Standards have been a great help. The local who regularly used to tour the Moscow Circus in Australia used to get away with blue murder because anything to do with Russia was politically sensitive. So this bloke got away with all the things that we could not and/or would not do. He had animals in those tiny little Russian cages in the middle of stinking hot Aussie summers, no shade for elephants - you name it, he got away with it - until the Standards came in to effect. Now he is on a level playing field with the rest of us and it costs him time, effort and money to present animal acts he doesn't bring them in and flog them around this country any more! We, as animal act lovers, are the losers but the animals are the winners.
Did SL scram with your money? lol
Steve,
Are you saying that the "operator" in question now has to use Australian animal acts, instead of bringing them in to the country. I think anybody who is allowed to go into any country under the auspices of being supremely talented takes money from the citizens of which every country they are raping at the time. It's not like you are coming in as a tomato picker. You are coming in because apparently there is now one of equal or like talent available in that country.
Wade
Partly because of new CITES interpretations by the Australian government and mainly because the Aussie acts are already geared up to work within the Standards [and don't to be rehoused etc at the promoter's expense] yes, that's the way it's working out.
Steve,
Kudo's to the the standard, if it is working that way. Has the "what is qualified" section of the standard worked as well?
Wade
Wade - one of the reasons why I follow these discussions on your Blog so avidly is to try find the answer to that question ...... what is qualified?
You've asked the question so many times in so many ways but I have yet to hear a definitive answer to it.
Back in the days before you started this Blog, when the same question was asked on Mr Woodcock's Blog, I said that I reckoned that a "qualified" trainer was one who had survived. I wasn't being facetious! Now I see that Mr Swain has come up with a similar definition.
So, are we right or do you have a better definition of qualified?
I can tell you that when the Australian Standards were being formulated lots of people a lot cleverer than me wrestled with a definition of "qualified" and never did come up with one.
Steve,
Are you familiar with the adage, "hope to die young enough to become a hero, rather then live long enough to be despised." I don't think longevity has anything to do with it. I also think given the "close ties" in this business, people are often afraid to respond as they have friends who are both qualified and unqualified. The only indicator of longevity success is production. What did you produce in that time frame. One act or four. Qualified is something that needs to be established before you start, not when you finish. What do we do with the broken souls that were "experimented" on. Qualified to work/train wild animals would be the same qualifications to work/train horses, elephants, dogs, bears, etc. etc. Some leave the military a General and some leave a Captain, and their pay scale reflects it. They were qualified early on. Some are qualified to work with a large group of animals and some are qualified to work with one or two. Some are no more qualified after 50 years to work with anymore then one or two animals. The exceptional ones, qualified before their career started were sent to West Point, and the qualifications have to be established before they are allowed to start.
What qualified me to take over an elephant act and a tiger act after only a few months feeding and shoveling the crap?
Wade
Wade
Alright, tell me - what DID qualify you to work tigers and elephants after the crap shovelling apprenticeship that we all do?
And then, what qualified you to train [as opposed to present] tigers?
What do YOU regard as YOUR qualifications?
Steve,
This is what I have been trying to establish. I don't think anything qualified me. I think that my good understanding of all animal behavior, not from watching someone, or from having someone explain their "theory", gave me an advantage, plus a business that said, "what the hell, we have nothing to loose and he's cheap enought.
What qualifies me now. Nothing. And I have never tried to. But 25 years ago when I started seeing obviously inexperienced people hired over better experience people, or a one salary who wants it mentality, I stared then asking and trying to find out "what is the standard." I may be wrong, and nobody can prove different anymore, but I'll bet if we had decided what the standard was back then, it would be a very different animal world today. I refuse to accept there is no hope left. So bear with me.
Wade
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