Human society is so alienated from nature that humans really believe, an elephant on a ball or a bear riding a bicycle, can teach them and their children something about non human animals.
Circuses teach us that we can use sentient creatures as means to our ends. They teach us that it is o.k. to take absolutely everything from someone in order to provide entertainment to someone else.
Circuses are a public humiliation of animals, exhibiting humans’ superiority and dominance.
Circuses are not fun. Circuses are sad.
Nothing of value can be learned by watching bears in tutus riding bicycles, or tigers jumping through flaming hoops. On the contrary, circuses present a distorted and misleading picture of wildlife, and do nothing to educate children or help them to develop compassionate and moral attitudes towards animals.
Circuses and zoos are probably the “best” lessons about speciesism.
By promoting this exploitation and cruelty, humans teach their children that the domination over other beings should be unquestionably accepted as a cultural norm.

Some circuses still catch animals in the wild, but even if the animals are born in captivity, it doesn’t mean they have no natural inclinations. It takes thousands of years – far longer than circuses exist – to alter instinctive responses in animals. The circus deprives animals of their basic needs to roam, socialize, exercise, forage and play.

Circus elephants never get to wash in water ponds, monkeys never get to climb trees or stay in a troop and bears never have the comfort of a den. Babies never live with their mothers. They are taken away before they are weaned.

Circus animals never have the choice, what or when to eat.
They don’t drink when they are thirsty but when they satisfy their “trainers”.
And they don’t choose where or when to sleep.
In the wild, bears don't roller skate, ride bicycles or do anything remotely resembling these so-called tricks. Tigers don’t jump through fiery hoops, elephants do not stand on a ball (forcing them to that is like forcing a human to stand on a marble), monkeys do not wear pants, horses do not walk on their hind legs, orcas don’t live in tiny aquariums, alligators don’t wrestle humans and in the wild goats don’t dance.

Horses are punched in the face and severely whipped. They are trained to walk backwards on their hind legs with tight reins forcing the neck into a supposedly attractive, courtly position.

Cats, obviously reluctant and fearful, are forced to jump from high platforms onto small pillows.

Doves are regularly kept in tiny and filthy cages and are often kicked like soccer balls.

Dogs, starved for food, attention and affection, are left in crates whenever they are not performing, they are regularly beaten and are only fed when they perform properly. Under their fur they are skin and bones.

Foraging for food and water the elephants roam up to 25 miles a day in the wild. In the circus they can’t even take one step.

Baby elephants born in breeding farms or kidnapped from the wild are torn from their mothers. In order to crush their spirits they are tied down and subjected to routine beatings and other tortures on a daily basis, usually for up to one month, until they learn that there is no use fighting back.

Training is based on fear, pain and intimidation. Trainers "must" break the spirit of the animals in order to control them. It is not uncommon for an elephant to be tied down and beaten for days at a time while being trained to "perform".
The circus industry itself refers to training measures as "make’em or break’em" procedures.

Lives of constant confinement and frustration of natural instincts force animals into a state of neurosis. Elephants are constantly swaying back and forth in their chains and tigers are constantly pacing in their cages. These repetitive behaviors are symptoms of a deep psychological distress.

Forcing animals to perform unnatural acts such as balancing on a high wire or riding a bicycle is an extremely difficult feat. Physical punishment and negative reinforcement are the norm in the world of animal training. It is standard practice to beat, shock and whip animals to make them perform over and over again, tricks that make no sense to them. Trainers drug some animals to make them “manageable” and remove the teeth and claws from others.

Bears have their noses broken and their paws burned to "teach" them to walk on their hind legs. Elephants are controlled by the use of bullhooks on the sensitive areas of their skin, such as around their eyes, behind their knees and ears, vagina, mouth and anus.

The animals are becoming zombies, obeying only to avoid more brutal punishment.
Starvation, thirst, drugs, hot irons, spikes, goads, fire, bullhooks, muzzles, steel-lined whips, steel forks, electric shocks, spiked collars... all invisible to the audience, force the animals to 'act' no matter how they feel.
Whips are seen in the ring but the use of screws hidden in the base of walking sticks, spikes hidden in tasseled, sticks and electric shock devices inside a flower bouquet, are not.

Disguised or not, violence is part of us. Animal rights activists usually say that if people knew how violent circuses are, they wouldn’t go. The cruel truth is that humans enjoy the violence. They enjoy rodeos, bullfights, human vs. animal fights and hunting. They enjoy the caricature of animals in circuses.

Animals in circuses are forced to travel up to 50 weeks each year. They either travel in tracks or by trains.
During transportation and between the performances, the animals are kept in cages with barely enough room to turn around.

Often the animals are not taken out from the railroad cars immediately upon arrival to the destination, either because of traffic conditions or because the train arrived too early or too late. In this instance, the animals are forced to wait inside of the railroad cars for hours even in extreme temperatures. Circus animals are forced to eat, sleep and defecate in the same trailers, where they can be kept for stretches of more than 24 hours.
Circuses schedules are created to maximize attendees, not to accommodate the animals from which they profit.
Some circuses go to warmer states in the summer, even though the animals may suffer in those temperatures. The same situation occurs in the winter in colder areas.
All this exacerbate the already stressful conditions caused by the imprisonment and transportation.

Usually, fresh supplies of drinking water are not available. Some animals such as elephants, are highly dependent on a water-filled habitats, thus suffer enormously in their arid cages. Cleaning of cages becomes low priority when water is not readily available and thus animals are often forced to stand in their own waste.

During the winter off-season, animals used in circuses may be kept in traveling crates or in barn stalls, some are even kept in trucks.
Circus elephants hobble 60% of their time, with one front and one back leg on a short chain. Lions and tigers are imprisoned in their tiny cages over 90% of the time.

Few circuses have the funds or the desire to put much money into comfortable winter shelters, since off-season housing is used for only a few months per year. Such unrelieved physical confinement has very harmful physical and psychological effects on animals. Stereotypic behaviors such as swaying back and forth, head bobbing, pacing, bar biting, and self-mutilation are common signs of mental distress.
Once animals have outlived their "usefulness" to circuses and to other traveling animals’ acts, they are either relegated to permanent winter cages, or are sold to other circuses, roadside zoos, canned hunting facilities to be shot for recreation, sold to exotic food restaurants and sometimes even animal research laboratories.

Imagine how you would feel if you had to watch your mother being beaten every day. What if you had to see and hear her wailing, crying and begging for mercy?
Imagine how hopeless you would feel if you couldn't help her.
You can help.
You can end every mother’s and everybody else's suffer...