The Kora Shrine Circus’ recent stint at Androscoggin Bank Colisee serves as a stark reminder of the importance of LD 396 — a bill being considered by the Maine Legislature that would ban the use of elephants in traveling acts. The Hamid Circus — the notorious company that puts on the Kora Shrine Circus — exemplifies the need for this kind of legislation.

Hamid has partnered with an elephant exhibitor who racked up hundreds of animal welfare violations, including repeatedly chaining an elephant so tightly she could barely move. According to a whistleblower’s report to the federal government, this trainer also “turned off the lights and beat” his elephant while she “was staked down by all four legs” and “directed others to take part in that by using other objects such as [a] sledge hammer and shovel handles.” In another incident, a handler testified that this elephant struck him and threw him down a hill, sending him to the hospital with a head injury. Another elephant with Hamid Circus killed a handler between circus performances.

Other traveling elephant exhibitors that frequent Maine have similarly damning records. Royal Hanneford, which has performed in Bangor and Presque Isle, recently paid thousands of dollars to settle alleged Animal Welfare Act violations after three elephants escaped from a circus where they were being used to give children rides. They ran amok for nearly an hour.

The Garden Bros. Circus, also known as Piccadilly Circus, which has repeatedly hauled elephants into the state through the years, has a long, well-documented record of featuring elephant abusers. According to government records, a handler with Garden Bros./Piccadilly admitted to forcefully striking an elephant in the face with a bullhook — a weapon resembling a fireplace poker that is designed to inflict pain. And the head trainer for the outfit currently supplying Garden Bros.’ elephant act was caught on video screaming at elephants while violently attacking them with electric prods and bullhooks and encouraging others to do the same.

The elephant handler now on the road with Garden Bros. was also caught on video using the sharp, pointed tip of a bullhook to force an elephant’s head down while swearing at her. In another incident, the same handler was caught hooking an elephant when she attacked another elephant in a circus ring after he completely lost control of the animals. This was only one of many such perilous incidents. At least three elephants have escaped from Garden Bros., and the company supplying elephants for the circus has a long history of elephant escapes and recently paid a penalty for its chronic unsafe handling of these unpredictable animals.

Mounting evidence — including video footage, sworn eyewitness testimony, and government inspection reports — makes clear that the only way to force the Earth’s largest land animals to perform is through the constant threat of physical punishment. Abuse is the rule, not the exception. What’s more, elephants are dangerous animals and the suffering abuse they endure in circuses only make it more likely that they will lash out. An elephant can easily kill a human with a single trunk swipe or foot stomp, and captive elephants kill about one person per year on average in America, while injuring many more.

Given the cruelty and serious safety risks inherent in elephant acts, the public is increasingly turning away from them.

Ringling Bros. will shutter next month after a decade of falling ticket sales, while animal-free circuses — such as Circus Vargas, which ended animal acts around the same time Ringling’s ticket sales began to plummet — are thriving. Shrines across the continent have begun to move toward animal-free circuses and other humane fundraisers. As Shriner and Hamid Circus owner and producer James M. Hamid Jr., has himself recognized, “As we look into the future, we see all circuses moving to non-animal productions.”

I urge Maine’s legislators to do their part to ensure that this transition happens without further delay so that elephants are no longer harmed on their watch and their constituents are no longer put at risk.

Delcianna Winders is Academic Animal and Law Policy Fellow at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For five years, she was head of the PETA Foundation’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement division. She has taught animal law at Tulane University Law School and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and presented on animal law at law schools across the country.

Delcianna Winders