Letter of the day: City should just say no to wild animal circuses

Last update: September 4, 2007 - 6:20 PM

Imagine this: You go to the circus at the Target Center, planning to have a good time. You settle into your seat with some popcorn and start people watching. The far ring catches your eye -- it has elephants lined up, ready to give rides. You look a little closer and notice the elephants look like the walking dead: thin, depressed, utterly resigned. Walking next to them is a man carrying a sharp hook on the end of a stick.

After the show, as you round the corner, you see the back door to the Target Center open. You peek inside and see a row of elephants, chained in place to the concrete floor, each one swaying back and forth and bobbing her head up and down, up and down, up and down. The door is closed in your face.

Then it occurs to you. Next they'll go to Rochester, where they'll be chained in place to the concrete floor there. Then on to Owatonna, Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes. Then on to another state. You wonder if they ever get out of those chains?

There are 28 U.S. cities that prohibit wild-animal circuses. Hundreds in Europe also prohibit them. These citizens have decided that the minutes of entertainment for people aren't worth the lifetime of misery for animals.

Early this month the Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee of the Minneapolis City Council will decide whether Minneapolis should continue to financially profit from wild animal circuses. Each time the city lets wild animal circuses perform here, we sanction inhumane treatment of animals. We may not be able to end all cruelty to all animals in every circus everywhere, but we can be quite sure we don't participate in and profit from it in our own city.

CHRISTINE COUGHLIN, MINNEAPOLIS; EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF CIRCUS REFORM YES

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