From the 9/16/16 Winston-Salem Journal

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/no-more-wild-animal-acts-winston-salem-city-council-ponders/article_8021f1b9-1716-5f2a-ae0c-dcb3f70f67f1.html

No more wild animal acts? Winston-Salem City Council ponders ban

By Wesley Young Winston-Salem Journal

Circus elephants could be a thing of the past in Winston-Salem if the city enacts a ban on animal acts, although city officials say they’re waiting to hear from the public before acting on the idea.

Greensboro resident Martha Cecil came to the city’s public safety committee this week to advocate a ban on wild animals performing in circuses here, saying that the practice is cruel to animals and poses danger to people attending such performances.

Too often, she said, a circus animal goes out of control and the result can be the death of a person or the circus animal.

“The death of one human and one innocent wild animal matters,” Cecil said during the meeting. “It is foolish to expect ... that wild animals living under severe stress, confinement or abuse will never lash out or try to attack or escape.”

The public safety committee took no action on Cecil’s request, preferring to wait and see what residents think.

Greg Turner, assistant city manager, said that his research found that only one North Carolina city — Asheville — has imposed a ban on wild animals performing in circuses in the city. Asheville started out by banning the animal acts on city property, then extended the ban to all the city.

Turner said he also found that other U.S. cities and even several entire countries — including places as varied as Mexico, Austria and Israel — have bans or other restrictions on animal acts in circuses.

City officials said Winston-Salem has had three circuses in recent years at the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds: The Jordan World Circus in 2012, which had tigers and elephants; the Garden Brothers Circus, which came in 2012 and 2016; and the Hermano Vazquez Circus with performing dogs but no exotic animals.

Jim Davis, the director of booking and routing for the Garden Brothers Circus in Sarasota, Fla., said there are bad apples in any business, but that the government shouldn’t get involved in regulating what people enjoy at a circus.

Garden Brothers has elephants, camels and ponies, and offers children rides on the animals at shows.

“I don’t have any problem with the way our animals are handled,” Davis said. “We take very good care of them. What is next, that you can’t have a zoo or certain types of dogs? If you have one bad daycare and you are going to ban all daycares? I like to get close to the animals and see them perform.”

Davis compared reports of berserk elephants to plane crashes: They can happen, he said, but they are rare.

“I would have no problem putting my own grandchildren on the back of an elephant,” Davis said.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ended its elephant performances this year, citing the difficulty in organizing tours amid a patchwork of growing anti-elephant regulations. The circus has denied mistreating elephants, and has in fact won multi-million-dollar settlements from animal rights groups over unproven allegations of mistreatment.

The mood on the Winston-Salem council’s public safety committee was generally that a ban sounded like a good idea, although council members said they want to hear more from the public. Cecil said she had circulated a petition containing some 500 names calling for a ban and that there were local people on the petition.

Council Member James Taylor, who chairs the public safety committee, noted that his own children had ridden circus elephants and said Cecil’s concerns make it a “matter of public safety we should be considering.”

“I think it makes sense to prohibit wild animals, but I have not heard a groundswell (for that idea),” Taylor said. “To me it makes sense.”

Taylor said the options the city could consider include a ban on all animal acts, a ban on wild animals in circuses, putting in rules regulating animal acts or simply letting the matter rest — and in that case be governed by any state or county regulations.

Council Member Jeff MacIntosh said that he thinks the public would be in favor of “a more enlightened view on how we treat animals,” and that he would be in favor of at least putting in restrictions.

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