Animal Defenders International is a “group of organizations… [that] work together globally for the protection of animals.” (See “About Us”) They work together across an array of locations to ensure that animals are being treated as the members of the organization believe that they should be. Among the areas of focus, the treatment of animals in the entertainment industry is a main concern for ADI.
In 1998, a group of Animal Defenders’ Field Officers in the UK worked with various circuses, video-taped the daily routine of numerous animals involved in the circus, and were consequently horrified at the manner in which the animals were treated for 18 months. Stones, metal bars, wooden planks, and negligence were thrown at the animals whenever they appeared to be stressed or were simply not cooperating.
In traveling circuses, where constant uprooting is required, many animals and their apparent uneasy feelings towards the unorthodox traveling procedures, the circus companies paid no mind, tying the animals down with heavy chains, leaving them stuck in their transport cages for long hours.
When not traveling, the conditions of their living quarters were hardly improved. Kept in dark, cramped cages the animals were not given enough exercise or comfort that they inevitably require in order to remain physically and psychologically healthy. Such confinement caused what can be described as nervous habits, “pointless repetitive movements and pacing….” “Abnormal behavior increased when animals were closely confined, tied, or chained up.” Consequently, these are the very environment in which they are kept in.
ADI has done as much as it can to ensure that the circus institutions that inflict pain and unprecedented circumstances onto these animals get reprimanded and shut down. 58 summonses were sent out to three specific individuals and when the charges against them were dropped, “ADI…immediately launched a massive letter-writing campaign….” With the effort of ADI, the three humans who were treating animals with disdain were found guilty for the cruelty they bestowed upon elephants and chimpanzees.
ADI is doing what they can to not let the prevailing cruelty towards circus animals continue. Through their active study of the environment in which these animals are living in, the way in which they are being treated, and they manners in which they are being transported they have experienced first-hand the horrifying conditions these animals unwillingly have found themselves in. With this information, ADI hopes to save the hundreds of animals by freeing them of the life they never asked to have. ADIs involvement across the globe makes them a very viable, very strong force against animal cruelty in circuses.
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