What are the differences between elephants and big cats in zoos vs. circuses?

gerenuk said:
My apologizes David, regarding shows in zoos, I was generalizing about any animal show in a zoo. Looking back at my posting I failed to mention that specifically.

Should we regard elephants with thoughtful activism without showing respect to other animals?
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My general experience with animals shows in AZA zoos is that they are excellent vehicles for entertaining conservation education. The San Diego Zoo has an excellent sea lion show (where I believe the sea lions are non-releasable rescue animals) and the LA Zoo has an excellent bird show. The animals perform natural behavior based "tricks", but there is an underlying conservation and/or natural history lesson to them. If circuses found a way to do this then perhaps there would be less of a stigma against them at least in the zoo/conservation community, but it doesn't seem likely that will happen (but would be very interested to know if it is going on anywhere).
 
@DavidBrown: I copied and pasted my favourite section of the article below. Bravo! I predict that there will come a time when 90% of the nations on Earth will have banned wild animals in circus acts.

"In fact, there's a long list of other countries — let us doff our hats to Bolivia, Austria, India, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal and Slovakia, among others — that have passed measures to ban wild animals in circus acts. Other nations, including Britain, Norway and Brazil, are on the verge of doing the same. Already, dozens of cities in the United States have banned circus animals."
 
Saro said:
Considering that with one single exception, all traveling circus elephants in Europe were wild caught, I would say that your statement of "less breeding" is a gross misrepresentation. I also believe that the number of elephants in North American circuses that were bred and raised in a traveling situation is probably extremely low. Most captive born circus elephants in the US are either from Roman Schmidt or the Ringling station which were/are basically like a zoo situation. Honestly, I also find your idea of putting zoo elephants in a circus for one or two years quite frighting !
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Saro, Im not at all, frighetened by frigtening you. Happy politics!

I never mentioned europe, I refered to circuses. And, yes, circuses bred elephant before zoos did. Nit with an impressing number, and during this era, the zoos had very poor statistics as well. But at least borth tried!
Before Roman Schmitt began his breeding program, Hannover Zoo did, and they were mainly depeant on three bulls which all came from circus.

Im naot argiung anything by this, just want ta state a scientifical outcome of breeding. You can hate circuses if you want, its allright with me.But the fact is, that circuses bred elephants before zoos did.
And with several animals.

So the discussion is differnce between zoos and circuses.
An elephant can physically put his penis into a female on a circus or in a zoo, and ejaulate. And a babay may be born. This can also happen in a sanctuary, an elephant hospital, and elephant camp in Asia, or in a game lodge in South africa.
 
I don't wish to get into a lengthy discussion about elephants in circuses on Christmas Eve, but the fact is that Circus Knie in Switzerland was breeding Asian elephants years ago at its H.Q. at Rappertsville.
 
DanKoehl said:
Saro, Im not at all, frighetened by frigtening you. Happy politics!

I never mentioned europe, I refered to circuses. And, yes, circuses bred elephant before zoos did. Nit with an impressing number, and during this era, the zoos had very poor statistics as well. But at least borth tried!
Before Roman Schmitt began his breeding program, Hannover Zoo did, and they were mainly depeant on three bulls which all came from circus.

Im naot argiung anything by this, just want ta state a scientifical outcome of breeding. You can hate circuses if you want, its allright with me.But the fact is, that circuses bred elephants before zoos did.
And with several animals.

So the discussion is differnce between zoos and circuses.
An elephant can physically put his penis into a female on a circus or in a zoo, and ejaulate. And a babay may be born. This can also happen in a sanctuary, an elephant hospital, and elephant camp in Asia, or in a game lodge in South africa.
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This is your answer ? Seriously ?
Yes, circuses have bred elephants before zoos did. Most of that breeding was at a time many decades ago, when it did not matter how many keepers were killed by the bulls (or cows) or how many bulls had to be killed because they became too dangerous for the circus.
Yes, Hannover kept former circus bulls (also decades ago). They did so because those bulls could no longer be kept at the circus for safety reasons.
I do not hate the circus, but I hate how most elephants are kept in circuses. The devastating effects on their mental and physical health are well documented (for Africans even more than for Asians). I also had the pleasure of having met and knowing Roman Schmitt. He knew the best way to breed elephants was to take them out of the traveling circus and to stop performing with them all together !

Largely, this is all politics because people like you close their eyes to the realities and it is a big relief to me that the number of people that agree with you is getting smaller every year !

On that note, Merry Christmas to everyone :)
 
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