A Blog designed for discussion of topics related to, but not limited to, Circus, Zoos, Animal Training, and Animal Welfare/Husbandry. Sometimes opening up the dialog is the best starting point of all. And if for nothing else when people who agree and don't agree, get together and start discussing it, it will open up a lot of peoples minds. Debate and discussion even amongst themselves opens a window where there wasn't one before.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/12/15/ST2009121505174.html?sid=ST2009121505174
Courtesy of Ryan "Coyote Boy" Easley
Posts
7 comments:
I can't get the photos to come up for some reason? I have to wonder why Sammy was so upset with Ringling to do what he did? I am very disappointed in him and sure am upset that I actually hired him years ago!
Wade-
Wanted to say Merry Christmas, and "your blog is fun, irreverent, and bitingly to the point. Have a great new year!
Bruce the clown.
Bruce,
WTF!!!!! Irreverent!!!! How about some respect!!!!
Merry Christmas to you.
Wade
Well, I'll say one thing for you Wade; you are the only person I have ever heard of who is willing to tackle controvercies such as these while you still have a professional interest in the business - very admirable indeed. I hope your candor never hurts Adam's bookings. It takes a lot of courage to speak out when you still have something to lose. It's much easier when you're on the sidelines. Bravo
Merry Christmas
Coyote boy huh? You don't understand Wade... there are HORDES of them!
Anonymous,
The thought that speaking out, or illustrating a flaw in something/an industry may bring repercussions/reprisals to ones self or family brilliantly illustrates why our industry has imploded. O'Reily, Beck, Limbaugh, and many others don't lose sleep over such things. Every horse, dog, cat, pet, animal magazine has a forum in which people can speak their minds, and do it with their names and not anonymous. That is the only uniqueness of the circus. People are afraid to. I should hope my son's future would be improved and extended indefinitely given the great changes and by speaking out truthfully, and not with malice or spite. I printed the story because there was not one thing wrong with it. It illustrates the great advances that have been made. It seemed to me that a former "trainer" dying from a diseased liver, in need of funds, sold some nothing pictures to the only source in the world willing to buy them, in the hopes of making them into something. Didn't happen. It showed a very professional operation, one of a very few in the world.
You have got to stop being afraid of the big, bad circus, or warm and fuzzy as some lifers would have us believe. It is not all of that. Most of the really bad has either died or gone away. The few bad apples left don't count for much anymore.
Wade
Wade, and yes, I will remain annonymous since I'm not as brave as you are, and know how vindictive the business can be. I personally did not see anything horrendous in any of the pictures, and I doubt that anyone else in the animal business, whether it be farming or large animal veterinary medicine would either. But, I doubt that the majority of the public would feel the same way. There are still those aging relics around who saw nothing wrong in what they did either. When the old pictures show up every so often on the other blog of heavily trussed up and chained bull elephants the comments are usually "what a magnificent animal" or "that's what the public wanted to see" Obviously each person has his own level of tolerance, from those who think people should have no contact with animals, to those who think everything and anything is just fine.
I don't believe he had any agenda when he released the pictures to the 'enemy camp' other than personal feelings of guilt when his beliefs changed. I'm sure, if he had them, pictues of the discipling of the adult elephants would have caused a greater sensation, but at the time he was taking pictures of a training session without thinking of future motive, otherwise he would have taken pictures of everything he saw.
I was approached (along with several other people) to appear on the Geraldo Rivera Show some years back when he was planning a circus expose show. I declined, as did most of the others, but I was admittedly torn between wanting to see certain people exposed and not wanting to hurt others (or admittedly, myself).
So, yes Wade, I hope your efforts pay off in a circus that can hold it's head high and when the future trainers give interviews, what they say, they say with truth and a clear conscience.
Post a Comment