Where are the Elephants? Not at the Puerto Vallarta Circus! Gretchen DeWitt - PEACEAnimals
February 3, 2015

The only animals I saw at the circus in Puerto Vallarta were two life-size plaster elephants in front of the Hermanos Fuentes Gasca big tent. Coca Cola, omnipresent in México, has on display a bottle as big as the elephants.

I went last Sunday to support a circus that no longer has trained wild animal acts. There are rescued dogs at the Acopio that could be professionally-trained and added to the collection of clowns, jugglers, hula-hoopers and acrobats.
 
A federal law in Mexico prohibits the use of wild animals in circuses. Training these animals has almost always meant deprivation of food, isolation, beatings, electrical shocks, and sometimes has resulted in death.

It is thrilling to see dolphins, porpoises and whales in their natural environments. None of these animals belong in tanks for the amusement of humans.

To swim with wild dolphins in Banderas Bay, contact Wildlife Connection, operated by journalist/researcher Eduardo Lugo and his biologist wife, Maru Rodriguez. The couple is researching and tracking the pod, and can usually locate the curious dolphins.  

Paulina Stettner, Director of PEACEAnimals, has been working with Fundación Tierra Nueva por los Animals and Animal AC to find solutions for the many animals that have been leading sad lives in Mexican circuses.  

She reports that they found a home for a lion named "Morelia," who weighed only 90 kilos and was covered in lice when rescued. He and a few bears have been transported to Bioparque Convivencía, a wildlife sanctuary in Puchaca, Hidalgo. The two groups have also found a home for more retired circus animals at a Colorado sanctuary.

One hopes that none of the wild animals that have been working at circuses in Mexico will be sold to circuses in other countries or to hunting ranches in places like Texas, where people pay for the privilege of shooting a basically defenseless animal.

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