PETA Global 2017 Issue 1

HOW ALEC BALDWIN HELPED

PETA TAKE DOWN THE BIG TOP

Alec Baldwin and PETA President Ingrid Newkirk at PETA’s Hollywood Awards Gala. Comedian and Actor is dead serious about saving animals in circuses and roadside zoos.

“Having worked with actors for many years, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into show business, but for the elephants with Ringling Bros. and other circuses, that’s exactly what happens.” That’s how Alec Baldwin began his narration of PETA’s video exposé of Ringling Bros. back in 2012. It was one of PETA’s many tactics that raised awareness of circuses’ abusive practices. The video made headlines around the world, and major news outlets – including Newsday, the Daily Mail, and others – reported on the heartbreaking footage. It helped bring about the sea change in public opinion that eventually led the circus to take elephants off the road and, finally, to announce that it would close. But the story doesn’t end there. Baldwin is a vocal opponent of the abuse of animals for entertainment, even appearing on Capitol Hill with PETA to talk about the issue. He once memorably remarked that animals in circuses “don’t come out of the womb with a top hat in one hand and a cane in the other. In order to make these animals perform in ways that they were not meant to perform, they’ve got to be beaten and abused.”

Now, he’s advocating for the other animals still suffering in show business. “After 146 years of abusing elephants and tigers in the name of ‘entertainment,’ Ringling Bros. circus is finished,” he says. “Now, we need to make sure that remaining circuses, marine parks, roadside zoos, bear pits, and any other atrocities that mistreat animals are also tossed on the trash heap of history, where they belong.” To that end, Baldwin recently teamed up with PETA to narrate a video about the lives of captive bears imprisoned by roadside zoos and traveling shows. “People talk about the right to bear arms,” he begins in the exposé. “After seeing this video, you might want to push for the right to arm bears.” The footage vividly demonstrates that animals suffer when they’re held captive for entertainment purposes, regardless of the context. In nature, bears roam hundreds of miles and are active for 18 hours a day, but in barren enclosures, they pace continuously – a sign of severe mental distress. They gnaw on chain-link fencing in frustration and are reduced to begging for morsels of food from tourists. In a letter to the US Department of Agriculture, Baldwin called on officials to “recognize

the cruelty and danger inherent in bear pits and ban this archaic form of confinement without delay.”

Of course, ticket sales are what keep animals imprisoned in these roadside hellholes and deprived of any semblance of a real life. Baldwin’s advice: Stay away! “As long as well-meaning people continue to go to roadside zoos and shows,” he says, “the bears will continue to suffer.”

14 NEVER FORGET