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TIPS FOR APPROACHING YOUR LOCAL CIRCUS SPONSORS

1. Write letters to those promoting a cruel circus. This includes hosting fraternal organization, business sponsors, retailers who are selling tickets or passing out free coupons, and newspapers, TV and radio stations that are advertising performances.

2. Offer to meet with sponsors. Show them photos or videos of the cruel treatment animals receive in the circus. Inform them of any Animal Welfare Act violations the circus they support has incurred.

3. If further action is needed, create a petition and get community members to sign it. Then send it to the sponsors.

4. Get your friends and neighbors to call the sponsors and voice their disapproval of the establishment's support of animal cruelty.

5. Initiate a boycott of the local sponsors.

SAMPLE LETTER TO CIRCUS SPONSORS 

Your Address

The date

Name of recipient of letter
Title of recipient
Name of company or organization
Address of company or organization

Dear Sir or Madam [or their name if you know it]:

I am writing to ask you to retract your sponsorship of the [name of circus] Circus.

The [name of circus] Circus uses animals in its acts. Animals used in circuses always lead extremely stressful and unnatural lives, and are usually severely beaten and otherwise abused while they are being trained. Devices designed to stab, gouge, slash, cut, bruise, shock, and burn animals are standard tools in training circus animals. Because these are wild animals being taught to perform difficult, unnatural, and often painful tricks, they can never be trusted to perform. Because of this, trainers use tactics that are meant to instill fear and establish dominance on all these animals; these tactics are necessarily violent and abusive.

Circus animals are confined to tiny cages, railroad cars, or trucks for up to 50 weeks each year. These enclosures are barely large enough for the animal to turn around, and in the case of elephants, the animals are chained for 24 hours a day. These cages are often dirty, unprotected from the elements, and crowded. Animals are purposely kept underfed and dehydrated, and it is not uncommon for circus animals to die from these substandard conditions.

It is commonplace for circuses with animal acts to receive multiple citations under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). This act provides only minimum protection to animals, such as requiring that the animal has enough room to turn around, lay down, and stand up, and that they are not left standing in their own waste. It does not prohibit the use of any of the barbaric training devices and methods used to train animals for every circus. Even so, these basic standards provided by the AWA are routinely violated: [look up the record of the particular circus in question, describe the citations it has received, and provide statistics here ­ statistics are available at www.circuses.com].

Animal circuses and other travelling animal attractions have been banned from many municipalities because of the danger these events pose to humans. Circus animals and other captive 'exotic' animals have been responsible for 132 deaths and hundreds more maulings and injuries since 1990.

I am a long-time customer of [sponsor name] and am very disappointed to learn of your support for violent acts of abuse and barbarism, human or animal. Please discontinue your sponsorship of the [name of circus] Circus and instead, sponsor one of the humane all-human circuses. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[Your signature]

Your name printed

News:
City Won’t Rent Space in Center to Circus, Albuquerque Journal, July 25, 2003
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