performingelephants

Wirth Bros was founded by the children of a Bavarian musician, Johannes Wirth (1834 – 1880), who arrived in Australia in 1855. The family worked as itinerant musicians, including for Ashton’s Circus, before establishing a musical and acrobatic troupe that evolved into a travelling circus. By 1887 Wirth Bros Circus was the largest circus in Australia, under the management of Phillip Wirth (1864 – 1937) and his brother George (1867 - 1941). In 1889 they began transporting the circus by train, a practice that continued for the rest of Wirth’s existence. In the 1890s Wirth Bros Circus performed in New Zealand, South Africa, Java, India and England, the first international tour by an Australian circus. Wirth’s Circus (as it was known from 1930) operated a two-year national touring cycle, which included annual visits to Sydney (at Easter) and Melbourne (around the Melbourne Cup, when they presented a gold-mounted whip to the winning jockey). The circus predominantly used imported international acts, with up to 40 performers, 10 elephants and 40 horses, with wild animals and support staff. They also staged a pantomime each year at Christmas time. Wirth’s Circus went into decline with the introduction of television and rising transport costs. On 27 December 1953 Wirth’s Olympia was destroyed by fire, and the circus finally closed in May 1963. Source: collections.artscentremelbourne.com.au/#browse=enarrative...

In circuses, Elephants are confined and chained for literally hours on end; Through physical punishment and the threat of its use, they are trained to pose in unnatural and difficult positions; They are moved, in unbearable heat and below freezing temperatures, from city to city chained in flatbed trucks and in boxcars; Calves are separated from their mothers at an early age for the purpose of training; Elephants are removed from companions to be bought and sold, and frequently moved about; Circus elephants have no level of autonomy over their lives, to the extent where they are trained to defecate into a bucket on command. Elephants in circuses are reduced to objects of entertainment for people. An elephant's place is in the wild with its relatives and companions. The totally unnatural existence for circus elephants is a travesty and to allow this practice to continue is unjustified and unethical. Source: www.elephantvoices.org/elephants-in-captivity-7/in-circus...