Help! The circus is coming to town!

[molly]

The circus will be here (next week?) & it is of course hugely exciting to many many people who don't know any better. Worse, I just found out that part of the circus (I believe some clowns) will be visiting the bookstore where I work for our children's story hour. I have voiced my objection to the whole thing, but of course it's pretty pointless since these arrangements were made long ago. So I can't stop the circus & I can't stop the promotion of the circus, but I'm hoping to at least prepare myself with a strong, careful defense of my opinion so that anyone in earshot will learn something & be willing to consider my point of view. Obviously the immedite answer is "because they mistreat animals" when someone asks the reason for my objection. But my feelings have been so deep for so long that the words no longer come to mind, because it has just become part of who I am. I feel like saying, "It's just wrong! How could you not see that?!" & of course that's pretty ineffective.

So the favor I ask you is to tell me what your briefest but most moving argument is against the circus, something that will definitely get the point across but won't make anyone too defensive to listen. Does anyone know of a good website even that I could mention to someone after I at least get them questioning the issue? All that comes to my mind is PETA, but I have some reservations about them (which I will explain if anyone needs to know), so I hesitate to send them there. I don't want to pass up an opportunity to educate people --my coworkers at the very least-- & hopefully get at least a few not to support the circus & maybe to start thinking about animal welfare in general. Thanks!

[Erin Pavlina]

You may want to poke around the PETA site yourself and read their fact sheets. You could then pass on those facts to others without telling them to visit PETA themselves.

[duckie1978]

Hate to say it, but I agree with Erin, you should go to PETA's web page and get some basics on that abuse that the animals go through especially at "reputable" circuses. I don't know which one is coming to your bookstore and town but PETA usually gets their info from reliable sources. their web page www.circuses.com is really informative and they have a huge list of circuses and the violations against them. Try to talk to your co-workers about it more, explain to them that the cicuses don't take good care of the animals, show them some facts about big cicuses like Ringling Bros. barely care for the animals, and that they are abused. Usually when you have federal complaints against a circus backing up your concerns your co-workers might be inclined to listen more.