Ringling in 2009, top photo and Ringling in 1939 bottom photo
Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus defeated a lawsuit by a U.S. animal-rights group accusing the “Greatest Show on Earth” of handling elephants with hooks and chains in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
A ruling in favor of Ringling’s owner, Vienna, Virginia- based Feld Entertainment Inc., was signed yesterday by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington. The nine-year-old suit by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals culminated in a six-week trial that ended March 18.
The group’s star witness, Tom Rider, cared for Ringling elephants in one of the circus’s traveling units from 1997 to 1999. Sullivan said Rider lied about payments he received from various animal-rights groups beginning in 2000 and that he exaggerated his personal attachment to the animals.
“Mr. Rider was repeatedly impeached, and indeed was pulverized on cross-examination,” Sullivan said in the ruling. “The court finds that Mr. Rider is essentially a paid plaintiff and fact witness who is not credible.”
Rider accused Ringling of causing physical, psychological, and behavioral injuries to the elephants by using rods with metal hooks and points to control their movement and chains to keep them in place on hard surfaces for extended periods.
The ruling is “a win for the U.S. Constitution because it reinforces that the federal court is no place to entertain a philosophical debate about whether elephants should be in the circus,” Michelle Pardo, Feld’s lawyer with Fulbright & Jaworski LLP in Washington, said yesterday in a statement.
Born in Captivity
Sullivan narrowed the case in 2007 by ruling that elephants born in captivity can’t be included and by excluding animals that Rider never worked with directly. The rulings reduced the number of elephants at issue in the case to about six from more than 30.
Sullivan had also rejected the group’s claim that elephants born in captivity were being wrongfully separated from their mothers at an earlier age than they would in the wild. He ruled that only the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could bring such an action.
A call to the animal-rights group’s headquarters in Sacramento wasn’t immediately returned.
The circus, formed by the merger of two troupes 90 years ago, sued the ASPCA and other animal rights groups in August 2007 in the same court, claiming they violated federal racketeering laws by paying Rider to act as a plaintiff and witness in several cases alleging animal abuse.
In addition to Ringling, Feld’s productions include “Disney On Ice” and “Disney Live.” The company says its shows have toured more than 65 countries and that it has about 30 million people in attendance each year.
The case is American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 03- 02006, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
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1 comment:
Good news about the elephant litigation.
That bottom photo. I think it is 1929 instead of 1939. Look at the autos. They all seem more 1920s models than 1930s.
More telling, however, is that we seen the entire herd in the march. In 1939, Walter McLain used the bulls to work the trains and on the lot. They arrived on the 1st section (3 bull cars) and 2nd section (1 bull car). With them spread around they would have gone to the lot in different groups as best I recall.
What we see here looks like the entire herd on the march from the 4th section which carried the elephant cars back then.
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