Massachusetts is the 11th state to ban certain wild animals in circuses. The new law bans using elephants, big cats, primates, giraffes, and bears in traveling exhibits and shows.
Animals Suffer in Circuses
Wild animals in traveling acts spend most of their days in tiny cages, hauled from city to city where they’re made to perform unnatural—and sometimes painful—tricks and stunts. Isolated from their families, these animals endure a lifetime of loneliness and abuse.
Beulah, an Asian elephant, was one of those animals. Beulah was forced to entertain for years across the Northeast before she died of blood poisoning in 2019. Just before her death, she collapsed multiple times at the Big E in West Springfield, Massachusetts. She was photographed lying on her side in a parking lot the day she died.
Massachusetts’ circus bill, signed by Governor Maura Healey in August, ensures no elephant will suffer like Beulah again.
A Victory Decades in the Making
Advocates have pushed for this bill for over two decades in the Massachusetts Legislature. The coalition supporting the bill included The Humane Society of the United States, MSPCA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, PETA, the Animal Welfare Institute, Four Paws, Berkshire Voters for Animals, the Global Federation for Animal Sanctuaries, Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), Animal Rescue League of Boston, and World Animal Protection.
Want to help animals still suffering for entertainment? Join our campaign urging GetYourGuide, the international travel company, to stop selling tickets to cruel venues that exploit wild animals.