I am writing as your constituent in the 8th Congressional district of Michigan. I STRONGLY OPPOSE HR3359 Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act.

Whether Circus animals are abused or not … and whether they should be kept in captivity, are TWO separate issues and should be addressed and legislated separately.

Unless you’ve actually experienced it yourself, you have no idea of the depth of commitment and love required to train and keep animals … especially circus animals. Multiple generations have supported their families working with animals … and oftentimes those animals have become family members as well.

If you can’t visit a circus yourself, read the blogs of circus people (great list on followthecircus.com), read comments from performers and fans alike … http://www.facebook.com/pages/Circus-Fans-Association-of-America/201199523257568?sk=wall&filter=1.

And what will you do with all the animals? Let them go, shoot them, put them in a zoo? Who will pay for that?

There are organizations that take in and care for these abused and traumatized animals. There is one in particular that has already taken in several circus animals, including bull elephants. They are non-profit and receive donations. Some of the elephants have been taken care of, financially, by Bob Barker. There are plenty of people that want to see these tortured animals live better lives, which is where the money comes from.

I am a constituent of the 2nd congressional district of Tennessee. I very strongly support H.R. 3359. While some circuses may treat their animals appropriately, a lot of them don’t (Ringling bros. to be exact). Either way, they use abuse to train the animals, especially the elephants. This is because the tricks that they want them to do are unnatural, how can anyone with a heart support this? Forcing animals to do something that is unnatural using abuse just for the purpose of entertainment, only after they have literally been taken out of their natural habitat. Please try to look at it from the viewpoint of the animal. They weren’t created to live in that environment. People that work with the circus can tell themselves that the animals are happy all they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that no creature (human or animal) would be happy if they were chained up, constantly forced to do something unnatural, received abuse for things out of their control, and had zero freedom.