Animals in Entertainment - Circuses, Zoos, Rodeos, and Racing
This page will explore the ethical issues behind using animals in entertainment, including circuses, zoos, rodeos, racing, cockfighting, and dog fighting. Issues will include confinement of wild animals in captivity, and the ethics of training and forcing animals to perform and fight.
Zoos are widely regarded as guardians of endangered species, so why do animal rights activists object to zoos keeping endangered species?
While animal advocates argue against horse slaughter, some horse breeders and owners say that horse slaughter is a necessary evil.
Background and history of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race; Cruelty to the dogs and other animals, including culling, beating, whipping and deaths, from an animal rights perspective.
A study published in Science magazine in December, 2008, finds that zoo captivity shortens elephants' lives. An international team of researchers examined data from over 4,500 elephants, and found that elephants in zoos live much shorter lives compared to those in Kenya's Amboseli National Park and even compared to elephants working in a logging camp in Myanmar.
Why are horses sold for slaughter? Unlike farms with cows, pigs and chickens, no one in the US seems to be breeding horses specifically for slaughter, so where do the horses come from?
Performing Animal Welfare Society rescues abused animals and surplus animals from zoos, circuses and other forms of animal entertainment.
This PeTA website documents animal cruelty in circuses.
This website by In Defense of Animals explains the cruelty behind horse racing and greyhoung racing.
SHARK campaigns against animal cruelty at rodeos.
Elephants are widely regarded as the animals who suffer the most in zoos. Website by PeTA.
The Sled Dog Action Coalition documents cruelty to the sled dogs in the Iditarod sled dog race.
