Performing circus elephants upset reader

I found it disturbing to see a photo of performing circus elephants on the front page of last Monday's paper.

While I understand the need to raise money for the Shriners Children's Hospital, I am ashamed that they chose a circus to do this.

As an animal rights activist, we are successfully working on banning all circuses from using animals, both wild and domesticated. We have successfully achieved this ban in many locations, most prominently in Los Angeles.

In so many circus environments, animals have been treated with extreme cruelty. There are hundreds of videos taken by various animal rights groups that have proven the torture and abuse that these gorgeous creatures endure so that they can prance and parade around at the whim of an audience. This abuse doesn't only happen with wild animals. Horses, dogs and other domesticated animals that perform in circuses also endure the same fate.

When I read about a child "liking it" when tigers were forced to jump through a ring of fire, I was so shocked and disgusted, I became physically ill. The depravity that our society has succumbed to is nauseating.

Do you honestly think that these beautiful and majestic creatures were put on this earth to perform tricks and give kiddie rides?

When I moved from the Seattle area, back to Moses Lake this last year, I was hoping to reconnect with a more wholesome environment.

I will be working extra diligently now to ensure that no more circuses grace this area.

I have nothing against the Shriners. But I am extremely disappointed in them for choosing to perpetuate the facade that animals of any kind belong in circuses. It is very likely that they did not know of these issues, and I'm hoping that this information will help them to make wiser choices in the future.

And I pray that people will start teaching their children that wild animals belong only in the wild, or in sanctuaries. They should be respected, and not used as a form of entertainment.

Kristine Worley

Moses Lake