Animal Rights…
Animal Rights, The Circus, Tarzan & PETA XXX: Are Circuses Still a Thing?
A Remembrance of Boyhood Heroes…
When I was a kid in the late 1950’s, I loved the circus. What boy didn’t?
When the Clyde Beatty Circus came to foggy old Saint John, it was a youngster’s dream come true. Clyde Beatty! Star of his own circus, old movie serials and radio thrillers. Animal trainer of Wild Man-Eating Lions & Tigers.
I loved it — the lions and other big cats. “The World’s Largest Group of Trained Jungle Bred Wild Animals!” The elephants. Snakes. Hyenas. “Get your popcorn here!” The Sideshow: “Alligator Girl” – “Seeing Is Believing!” And the Big Top: The horses and riders in center ring. The elephants and riders in center ring. The high flying trapeze artists.
And the finale: my hero, Beatty, dressed in his gleaming white tropical military uniform, with gun on hip, a lone man facing those big cats in the cage. Seeming to stare them down.
Back then, a local radio station used to play new and old-time radio programs. Every Saturday morning, I would listen with excitement to BBC’s JOURNEY INTO SPACE – OPERATION LUNA and American shows like THE LONE RANGER, THE CLYDE BEATTY SHOW and — my favourite — Edgar Rice Burroughs’ TARZAN OF THE APES.
I had come into a whole package of exam tablets, you know: those long tablets with legal-sized sheets.
After every episode, I would grab a tablet and write down each adventure from memory, complete with dialogue and illustrations. My own Handwritten Library of Action Yarns.
And then suddenly there were no more radio dramas. Stopped. Over.
TARZAN VS CLYDE BEATTY
I missed them so much, that I wrote my own original adventure. TARZAN VS CLYDE BEATTY. Early fanfiction.
In it, Clyde Beatty entered Tarzan’s jungle to catch a new lion for his circus.
In the story, Tarzan and Beatty were adversaries – the Lord of the Jungle would not allow any hunter to capture one of his lion friends. No take ’em back alive here.
The disagreement heated up. Guns were drawn. Shots were fired, missing. Tarzan pulled out his knife and prepared to jump on Beatty.
I settled the impasse by having Jane arrive to announce that one of the lions had come down with a mysterious illness. The great golden cat could only be saved if it was given a special medication for life. So Beatty got to take the great golden cat back to civilization, to save its life. That ending was a cheat. But, hey, I was only 11 or thereabouts. I wanted Clyde and Tarzan of the Apes to be friends.
When I wandered around the Clyde Beatty Circus grounds after the Big Top show, I spent more time watching the animals in their cages. And I felt a great sadness. The sadness came from those animals. In their cages. Pacing. Wandering. Lost…
I never forgot their sadness.
A New Age & Animal Rights
Years later, when the pressure was on to remove animals from circuses, I whole-heartedly agreed. It was time to free the beasts. It was time for animal welfare and animal rights. Tarzan had been right.
And so, when it was announced that Circus Mundo, a modern day circus, was coming to Atlantic Canada, the press reported, “Opponents of the circus take issue with the transportation and confinement of exotic animals, as well as the use of these animals for human entertainment.”
Nova Scotia’s Scott Saunders, an animal rights activist, pointed out that “it is now 2012 and people shouldn’t look for gasps and laughs in an animal circus.”
He concluded, “These types of acts which may have been socially acceptable in the past are no longer socially acceptable. It’s not okay to go and shell out your money and support animal cruelty.”
Scott is right — this family won’t be giving Circus Mondo our hard-earned pay.
UPDATE: “BRAVE 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL PROTESTS CIRCUS USE OF ANIMALS”
Our most recent Animal Rights heroine is 16-year-old Emily Reyneri, who protested the use of circus animals in her community, telling a local newspaper: “Animals have a right to be free from human abuse. They deserve to be free, and that’s basically it.”
The New Times of Broward, Palm Beach, reported that the visiting UniverSoul Circus “includes classic circus mainstays, like acrobats, motorcyclists who ride around in that crazy spherical ball-thing, and — much to the dismay of animal lovers around the world — elephants and zebras.”
When asked what she would say to UniverSoul, Emily simply said, “Liberate the animals.” Send them to a sanctuary to retire, Emily explained. “Or, there are a lot of very well accredited zoos in the area, that take great care of the animals.” [1]
Times they are a-changing, thank God.
PETA XXX
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has just upped its campaign by releasing its PETA XXX site — human nakedness for animal’s sake. “We know that there’s more to life than sex and that you have multiple interests. Now it’s time to see a few PETA videos considered so ‘hardcore’ and so ‘offensive’ that no TV stations have dared to run them,” states PETA in their intro.
“We really want to grab people’s attention, get them talking and to question the status quo and ultimately take action, because the best way we can help the greatest number of animals is simply by not eating them,” PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt told The Huffington Post in an interview about their XXX website.
Among the pics of unclothed women are “adult videos” of animal cruelty such as factory farms, fur-bearing animal trapping, science lab testing, trophy hunting — and abused circus animals.
CONCLUSION. Should Live Animal Circuses still exist? A modern day search for “Circuses Near Me” should come up blank. “Stunning acrobatics & hilarious clowns” OK. “Wild Man-Eating Lions & Tigers” No!
“Live Free, Mon Ami!” – Brian Alan Burhoe
==>> To See My “EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS: A Tribute to Tarzan’s Creator” CLICK HERE NOW!
Do you love wild animal tales?
IF SO, YOU’LL LUV “WOLFBLOOD” — MY MOST POPULAR ANIMAL STORY:
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“This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance. Tarzan had not realized what a prisoner he had been. At last he was free.” – Edgar Rice Burroughs
[1] New Times, “It’s 2016. Do we really need to be doing this to animals?” To read the complete story, go to Universoul Circus Still Uses Elephants
Updated February 6, 2016
CIRCUSES NEAR ME: Animal Rights, The Circus, Tarzan & PETA XXX
Keywords: activists, animal rights, animal rights articles, animal testing, animal welfare, circus cruelty, circus near me, circuses near me, elephants. Emily Reyneri, fanfiction, Universoul Circus, Radio Classics, wildlife sanctuary, world wildlife foundation and world wildlife fund.
