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Shriners International claims to be dedicated to compassion and service to others, yet its chapters continue to host notoriously cruel animal circuses. Video footage recorded at Shrine circuses has shown elephants jabbed with a sharp bullhook, tigers whipped in the face, bison pulled by rings in their noses, and other animals suffering in despair.
An animal behavior expert reported that although circus trainers, ringmasters, and other staff members have claimed that the animals at Shrine circuses perform tricks as a result of rewards and trust, “what actually occurs is environmental and physiological neglect, psychological abuse, and coercing the animals to behave through dominance and fear-based techniques.”
Keeping far-ranging tigers inside cramped cages, forcing sensitive elephants to perform meaningless tricks under the threat of punishment, and dressing up animals in demeaning costumes are forms of speciesism—a human-supremacist worldview—and these practices must end.
Tell Shriners International to require that all its chapters’ fundraisers be animal-free.