Animal Activists Protest Circus PR Rep
Lisa George / WABE News
Animal protection activists in Atlanta took a new tack Thursday in protesting the treatment of circus animals.An audio version of this story
The circus doesn’t come to town until February, but the organization Georgia Animal Rights and Protection (GARP) staged a protest in Buckhead. GARP members posted themselves outside the restaurant where a public relations representative from Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey was having lunch with other PR folks.
“At Ringling Brothers, it is standard practice for baby elephants to be torn from their mothers and violently forced to perform confusing and grueling tricks,” said Mukang Pederson, one of the protestors who lined Peachtree Road holding photos they say show baby elephants being abused.
Ringling Brothers’ Regional Public Relations Manager Crystal Drake says her company treats the animals well, saying, “I think some of those misrepresentations really are just a snap in time, a moment in time, that’s been misconstrued to suggest something that is simply not happening.”
In 2011, the Fulton County Commission banned circuses from using bull-hooks, but Ringling Brothers won an injunction that prevented enforcement of the law because the City of Atlanta had not passed a similar measure.
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