This show must NOT go on

Exotic and wild animals in circuses – that’s bad enough. But those same animals forced to travel the country in squalid and cruel conditions – that’s too much. Please call, fax or email your Congressional representative tomorrow -- Tuesday, March 20 -- and help save wild animals from the traveling circus life, an awful life for all involved.

The Performing Animal Welfare Society (or PAWS,www.PAWSweb.org) is working with Animal Defenders International (ADI) to mount a mass broad-based support campaign, declaring, “The show must not go on!” We can help toward that goal by urging legislators in the House of Representatives to act positively on H.R. 3359, the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act (TEAPA).

This life-saving bill is in the Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives – reports PAWS, describing it as “the committee where most animal protection laws are assigned, and all too often, die.” Unless we act tomorrow, that bill may never make it out of committee.

According to the PAWS website, “Traveling circuses cause suffering to exotic and wild animals," as follows:

* Limited space. The animals' living spaces are always small and the animals’ ability to move around is severely restricted.

* Extended hours inside vehicles. Not only are circus animals forced to travel great distances, but they must also be loaded well before the circus is packed to travel to the next location. The animals must then wait in their vehicles while the circus is set up, before they can be unloaded. Set up time can take as long as 24 hours, even on short journeys.

* Lack of free exercise and restriction of natural behaviors. Circuses may pitch their show in any spot they can find – on roadsides, in fields, on a concrete parking lot. The animals’ needs are not taken into consideration.

* Stress from abnormal conditions. Solitary animals are housed alongside other animals; prey species are kept in sight of predators; family group animals are isolated. Any of these circumstances can cause psychological suffering, and sometimes even insanity.

* The tricks these animals are forced to perform require extreme physical coercion and violence, including the restriction of food and/or water, use of bull hooks, stun guns and other electric shock devices, as well as metal bars, whips, and intimidation.

These conditions cause the animals to be prone to health, behavioral and psychological problems. The extreme levels of stress that circus animals endure can make an already dangerous animal even more dangerous, a scary thought when you consider their close proximity to the public. These situations have resulted in human injuries and even deaths.

Please call, fax or email your Congressional rep tomorrow. Support H.R. 3359!
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***** visit www.nj.com/pets for a mix of info and opinions about pets.

"OK, now open real wide . . ."

They're lucky tigers, even though they may not agree. Then again, their toothaches have probably gone away and they're feeling much better overall.

For many of the tigers who live at PAWS ARK 2000 sanctuary in San Andreas, CA, the last weekend of August was a marathon dental weekend. (Most of us quail at an hour-long dentist date. Imagine being a tiger -- drugged, trucked to the surgery site, operated on, returned 'home' and then waking up with a feeling that something strange just happened.)

By the end of the weekend, 19 root canals and one oral surgery had been performed on five tigers by a group of doctors ("Vererinary Dentists Without Borders") who provide their services free to "disadvantaged animals" in non profits like PAWS.

Both a video and a slide show of the tigers being treated are on the PAWS newsletter site (newsletter@pawsweb.org. For (amazing!) background information, the site of the Peter Emily International Veterinary Dental Foundation (PeterEmilyFoundation.org), which supplied the doctors and technicians who pitched in at PAWS, may also be of interest.

Humans helping non-human animals who, in all these cases, had already been rescued from horrible lives: way to go -- and thanks!
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The pride of San Andreas

(Here’s a long but very happy excerpt from the PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society)newsletter describing the arrival at PAWS of four circus lions from Bolivia. Email newsletter@pawsweb.org for a copy of E-News to see more photos and a video made at the end of their journey.)

The four circus lions from Bolivia -- Simba, Bambek, Daktari and Camba -- arrived in San Andreas at 3 am on Friday, May 28, after a long journey by plane and truck . . . Their crates were unloaded into the lions’ den area, enhanced with pine trees and huge logs.

As the crates were moved around, all four lions began to roar, calling to one another for reassurance. Crews quickly scattered straw around the enclosure and shifted crates up to den doors so the lions (who clearly did not like being separated) could be together.

The sun rose as the lions were released into separate den areas; finally the gates were opened and the three males were reunited. Camba, the female kept separated until all the animals can be neutered, hugged the common fence, pushing her body into Bambek, the older male.

Suddenly, the males began rolling around in the fragrant alfalfa hay, then raced around the big enclosure sniffing the pine trees, urinating profusely, and somersaulting over the branches to jump on an unsuspecting companion. Camba chased the three up and down the fence line, wearing pine branches and hay on her head.

Sadly, we realized how spacious even that small den area was compared to the metal boxes that had been their home for most of their lives. We were eager to release them into the big habitat.

The three males fell asleep on top of each other against the fence next to Camba until we arrived hours later . . . and prepared to release the lions into the huge, sunny, hillside habitat with trees, logs and plentiful vegetation.

Camba was released first. After all, in lion society, the female is the smartest, leading the hunt and feeding the babies as the lazy males watch from a distance. As she bounded out the gate, the anxious boys found their own gate and followed her to freedom.

They spent most of the day running up and down the hill, stopping just long enough to rest in the shade of the oak trees. The next day, they were obviously sore from all the unusual exercise.

The lions from Bolivia were home. They chose to sleep out in the habitat that night, gazing up at the stars for the first time in their lives.
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Royalty confirmed

Huzzah, Queen Maggie! Ms. TUSKany 2009.

To which readers might say, “Huh?” For the background details, please read the August 6 post, "Earned royalty," which tells about PAWS, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, in California. Maggie, an elephant rescued from the Alaska zoo – you read it right, Alaska – and flown to this haven, was among the pachyderms there who were competing for the crown during PAWS’ annual Elephant Grape Stomp.

Votes for any of the elephants were really donations to PAWS, and Maggie was the winner. It almost had to be. She was the sentimental favorite this year because of her plight and then her flight to freedom, followed by her gradual adjustment to living in a habitat much closer to the one from which she was taken as a baby . . . to Alaska.

Way to go, Maggie!
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Earned royalty

“There she is” . . . the Pachy Princess, chosen from among all the contestants in the “Ms. TUSKany Pageant.” The elephant (yes, the elephant) with the most votes (as in donations) will be crowned Ms. TUSKany on Oct. 17 at the 2009 Elephant Grape Stomp.

Humans who attend the event will “sip regional wines, savor Tuscan cuisine and share a squishy moment with the elephants” (a.k.a. “pachyderms” or thick-skinned animals).

If this seems stranger and stranger, that’s because it’s all about an elaborate fund-raiser for PAWS, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, in California. Among the residents at one of its three sanctuaries are nine elephants, including Maggie, formerly of the Anchorage, Alaska zoo.

You read it right: an elephant – whose habitat is tropical – lived for years in Alaska, in a cage with a concrete floor, and for much of the time without elephant companionship, until animal activists raised such a wide and loud ruckus that Anchorage reluctantly let her go. Underwritten by a humane and moneyed friend of animals, Maggie was flown to California, where she has settled right in, as reported in reports and videos from PAWS.

The vote-donations from here for “Pachy Princess” won’t go to Annie, Ruby, Gypsy, Lulu, Mara, Rebecca, Wanda or Nicholas (in the running for Mr. TUSKany) – however worthy they all are. Maggie’s the sentimental favorite. In becoming a “rescued elephant” and escaping Alaska, she beat the odds. (As Maggie’s freedom fighters said at the end of each note, “Warm rumbles” or “Trumpets!” )

Besides an introduction to PAWS and news of Maggie, more details on the Ms. TUSKany pageant can be found at the organization website: pawsweb.org .

Vote early and often!
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