Elephants Are Companion Animals. Several animal-rights groups are suing Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to stop practices it claims are inhumane. They believe that if those practices are stopped, the circus will have to stop using elephants altogether, and that is their real intent. They claim that employing elephants in the circus is inherently cruel. Bull. That describes not just an adult male elephant but this lawsuit as well.
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There are two things to remember here, both summed up in the phrase "companion animals". First, elephants and man have been in close association for millennia. Second, elephants are animals, not people.

"The Asian elephant has been semi-domesticated for centuries," said [Ringling Bros.' spokesman Bruce] Read, citing its use in warfare, farming and various ceremonies. "Our circus brings them to areas where people don't see such animals very often. That's not something we should deprive our future generations of."

Considering that the African elephant was used by Hannibal in 219 B.C., it is plain that "centuries" in the quote above is very conservative. Indeed, the website of the Letaba Elephant Hall in Kruger National Park, South Africa, shows this history:

c. 2000BC: Earliest evidence of tamed elephants in the Indus valley

1750-1123BC: Chinese Yin dynasty tames elephants

Now a few animal-rights extremists want us to sever that tie and 'free' all the elephants on this planet. There are lots of extremists in the animal-rights movement who unfortunately ascribe to animals a greater intellectual depth than we have any reason to believe they have. These people seem to think animals both understand and value the abstract concept "freedom" — whereas in fact not even all people do! — and the biological concept of "death", so that we cannot ever deprive any animal of freedom or life under any circumstances whatsoever. That is just plain nuts.
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Animals do not either understand or value freedom, nor, in the case of food animals, realize that they are being fattened for the slaughter. They know only that they are or are not eating regularly and are or are not in pain. So yes, we should avoid hurting animals when we can, but not to the point that we can neither use animal power nor consume animal products.
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I appreciate animals but do not fixate on them nor exaggerate their 'suffering' at the hands of people. Yes, cruelty should be forbidden, if there's any way to do that without rendering the animals we rely upon useless to us. I am not a vegetarian, but all animal-rights extremists are. Curiously, they think it's just fine if animals are carnivores. But we can't be. Indeed, they will "free" entire populations from fur farms to run into the forest and slaughter every squirrel, rabbit, mouse, bird, rat, muskrat, and other prey animal they can find for miles around. Alas, even that toll on animal life is rarely enuf to sustain the "freed" carnivores, and most die an agonizing death of starvation. So much for the concern of these extremists with the wellbeing of animals.
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Human beings are omnivores, not herbivores. "Omnivore" intrinsically includes "carnivore". Humane slaughter is a lot better than what animals can expect from nature. I suspect that if food animals had a choice, they would much rather be herded unsuspectingly into a slaughterhouse where, before they know what hit them, they are stunned into unconsciousness before being killed, than be chased by a pack of lions and ripped apart while still breathing.
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As for elephants, unless we can find some way to reverse human population trends and economic forces, and restore habitat, many of the world's elephants face being crowded out of existence or shot for their ivory. Circus elephants are protected, fed, and given veterinary care wild elephants don't get. If in return they have to perform a few tricks and travel in boxcars, that seems a fair trade.
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Can we keep elephants in place within boxcars (to keep them from shifting their weight and causing derailments that might kill them as well as people nearby) by more humane methods than chains? Maybe. Maybe not. What else could we use? Giant inflatable cushions to hem them in? Would they like that better? Or would such bolsters drive them nuts?
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By all means, let's be kind to our companion animals. But let us never forget that they are animals, not people.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,497.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 6:29 PM