Circus Cruelty Videos - The Camera Doesn't Lie, or Does It?

Michael Hackenberger
Telling it like it is?

Animal rights groups will tell you that circus animals are beaten into submission and forced to perform through fear. It’s easy to believe if you never go to a circus with animals, which is why campaigns to “stop circus suffering” generate such a big income from armchair animal lovers (the combined income of UK organisations including Peta, ADI, CAPS and Born Free is over £350 million per annum).

Circus trainers will tell you they love their animals like their children and train them with a system of rewards and kindness that enriches the animals’ lives. That makes sense, because lots of other animals are trained, from guide dogs and riding horses to household pets - and nobody assumes they are cruelly treated.

But then there are those covertly shot videos of behind-the-scenes abuse that periodically show up in the news and live forever on YouTube to nag at the conscience of even the most ardent circus fan.

The latest star of such a video is Michael Hackenberger who trains big cats in a circus ring at Bowmanville Zoological Park in Ontario. Just before Christmas, Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) released a video of Hakenberger appearing to whip a tiger twenty times during a training session.

Hackenberger, who owned the tiger used in the film Life of Pi, thought he was in the presence of a woman interested in animal training, but didn’t know she was secretly filming him. The video shows him telling her that it’s more effective to hit a tiger’s foot while it’s on its pedestal, because being trapped “like a vice” between the whip and the hard surface “it stings more.”

Clearly an abuser caught bang to rights, you might think.

Except that Hackenberger is the first trainer filmed in such circumstances to reply with a video of his own explaining how his actions have been taken out of context. View it here.

First, he shows us that far from whipping the tiger twenty times, he was actually whipping the air near the animal to make a lot of noise without touching it. His purpose wasn’t to hurt it, but to show his displeasure at it jumping onto the ring kerb which, during a performance, would be dangerous.

He demonstrates with the same tiger, which shows no fear of the whip, and points out that if he’d actually been beating it, its natural reaction would be to try and kill him.

Next, he explains that in another segment from the Peta video he hit the tiger’s paw, but only to stop it taking a swipe at his assistant.

Discipline is part of any training regime and, given an animal’s short attention span, has to be administered at the moment of bad behaviour - just as rewards are given at the moment of good behaviour.

It’s the animal equivalent of smacking a child to stop it running into the road. Witnessed in isolation the wallop may make you wince, and if a celebrity were filmed hitting their offspring it might cause a media storm. But, in the real world, it doesn’t mean the parent is generally abusive or that the child won’t be all smiles again five minutes later.

Some people will question why Hackenberger needs to assert his authority over a wild animal. His answer is that in a world of shrinking habitats, captivity is a necessary option. Boredom and obesity are the biggest problems for zoo animals, whereas training gives them exercise and stimulation.

As justification, Hackenberger invites us to look at Uno, the tiger from the Peta video, who is with him throughout his own film: as relaxed around humans as a housecat, and the constant recipient of treats, strokes and affection.

Hackenberger’s anger at the Peta video isn’t with the two minutes of his training session that it shows, but the 90 minutes that it doesn’t show.

“If there was anything bad in that time, they’d show you,” he reasons. So could it be the complete film would put two instances of responsible discipline in the context of a caring training regime, or actually show the tiger enjoying the interaction the way a well-trained dog enjoys playing with its owner?

Take a look at another of Hackenberger’s videos filmed in an outdoor exercise pen and make up your own mind.

When the last Labour government commissioned the Radford Report on the welfare of circus animals, undercover film submitted by animal rights groups was excluded as evidence, precisely because it had no context. In the words of then Minister of State Lord Rooker: “A film showing a lion pacing up and down may indicate evidence of stereotypical behaviour, but equally the film may have been shot when the lion had seen its keeper approaching with food.”

Without such film, the report concluded there was no evidence that animals were more likely to suffer in the circus than any other captive environment.

I understand why many people harbour an instinctive objection to the idea of performing animals. I was brought up with that belief. But when I became interested in circus, I knew I had to visit one of Britain's last big top shows with elephants, tigers and horses to get a glimpse into the disappearing history of where the art form began. My interviews with trainers and my changing opinion on their work forms a major thread of Circus Mania, the book the Mail on Sunday called "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." Click here to read a sample on Amazon.


Author's Note: I'd be interested to hear the views of any animal trainers on Michael Hackenberger's video and training methods. My impression is that he's maybe at the harsh end of the scale and perhaps a little old school, but I reckon he's sincere. Whether his honesty will cut any ice with his detractors is another matter. We live in an age where the Daily Mail has just run an hysterical piece about a training display during an open day at Amazing Animals - the UK's leading supplier of trained animals to TV and film. There's no 'evidence' of mistreatment underpinning the piece, just the opinion of TV presenter Chris Packham that the very idea of using animals to entertain the public is wrong. In such a climate, it's no wonder that few trainers speak as openly about their methods as Hackenberger. But an open debate on what happens 'behind closed doors' is necessary if the animal training industry is to gain the wider public's trust. Hackenberger's bravery in opening that debate is to be commended.

Update: Unfortunately we live in a world where an open debate on what does or doesn't constitute the abuse of animals is increasingly difficult to have. I wanted to give this post a wider airing on the Huffington Post - a supposedly open-door blogging platform for the expression of all viewpoints - but because Hackenberger admits to striking his tiger twice (in a responsible way) the Huff wasn't "comfortable" with publishing the piece. So TV presenters such as Packham can have their views of animal training aired in the media, but animal trainers, who are the only people who know anything about animal training, aren't allowed to tell us how they work. How can the public make up its mind if it only hears one side of the argument?


 

Film Review: The Golden Age of Circus: The Show of Shows

If you believe the circus to be a place of weirdness, cruelty, suffering and exploitation; grotesque, shocking, seedy and bizarre... then this collection of old black and white film set to music and edited like a walk through a house of mirrors by Benedikt Erlingsson will meet all your expectations and more - even if you find yourself watching through your fingers with one eye closed in a wince.

As a caption announces at the beginning of this BBC4 Storyville show (view it here), "Contains upsetting scenes."

Well maybe, if you're scared of clowns, believe all circus animals are tortured prisoners, and the human freaks that accompany them are exploited just as fully.

Personally, I loved it.

Mostly. At an hour and a quarter, it's far too long, and some of the sequences are stretched too far. But the commentary-free style, with similar scenes from different circuses on different continents grouped together and intercut like a pop video to the club beats of a band called Sigur Ros is both poetic and hypnotic.

And the grainy, faded images that bombard us are relentlessly striking. To take a few:

A woman dancing wildly with a chair in her mouth.

A toddler standing nervously in front of a knife thrower's board while a woman, perhaps her mother, throws knives around her.

A man wreathed in flames diving from a towering ladder into a pool that's also alight.

Not everything is strictly circus. There are sideshow strippers, vaudeville dancers and rodeo cowboys. But there are connections. Shots of steer wranglers and bucking broncos are cut with a man in a circus ring being thrown from an 'unrideable' mule.

There are animals galore: Half a dozen polar bears on a merry-go-round; elephants dancing in plaid shirts; chimps riding horses; a lion riding a horse.

Those who believe circus animals are cruelly treated will have their beliefs affirmed by these scenes. But that's the way they've been edited and juxtaposed with the music: to shock.

As the music accelerates, more violent barbarism assaults our contemporary sensibilities: toddlers in boxing gloves slugging it out; chimps boxing; women boxing; blindfolded men swinging madly at each other; a boy boxing a kangaroo.

Even the clips of escapologists being bound and hoisted aloft by the ankles - or locked in boxes and set on fire - look more like torture than entertainment.

Did people really applaud and laugh at such cruel spectacles, we're invited to wonder?

But, as I say, that's the way it's been edited: to look like a nightmare. Even the clowns have been set to music and had bits of their act taken out of context in ways that makes them look bizarre and ugly, rather than funny.

A lot of circus people and fans have said they hated it, for that reason. But then, it's wrong to view Erlingsson's film as a documentary. It's a visual poem, a piece of art in its own right that takes real film and filters it through the director's imagination into his own vision of what the circus is or should be. Taken as such, it works, often thrillingly well.

But it's not the circus as people would necessarily have seen it at the time. There are some stunning scenes here of human cannonballs, trapeze artists and high wire walkers. But to see them presented in context and in a truer representation of the circus as a place of dreams and wonder, rather than nightmares and fear, take a look at a DVD called The British Circus 1898 - 1972. Read my review here.

The Guv'nor, Billy Smart

This fine portrait of arguably Britain's most famous circus owner, Billy Smart, was painted by Terence Cuneo and appears in Steven B Richley's fabulous new book, The Posters of Billy Smart's Circus. The book can be purchased from Double Crown Books for £34.99 including postage. Click here for details.

More on this soon.

One of the posters (also used on the cover) in
The Poster of Billy Smarts Circus
by Steven B Richley

Clown Gathering and Clown Extravaganza

If you go down to the sea this month, you're in for a big surprise... in fact you better go in disguise... because this is the month that every clown that ever there was be meeting at a seaside hotel for a week of lectures, socialising, prattfalls and maybe even a custard pie fight. No, it's not a political party conference, but Clown Gathering UK.

As well as funny men and women from all over the UK, international clowns in attendance will include India's funniest clown, Flubber; Canada's Amanda O'Leary; and America's Lovely Buttons.

Flying the flag for Britain, meanwhile, will be Simon Thompson's Clown Noir (Second from left, above), Mattie the Clown and, from one of Britain's oldest circus families, Bobbo Roberts (Second from right, above).

The whole thing is organised by Andy The Clown (in the pale blue suit, third from right, above) and runs from February 22 - 26.

Now in its second year, the Clown Gathering is for clowns only - a chance for clowns to be clowns without the public's gaze; and who knows what they might get up to when it's all clowns together for their annual trip to the seaside?

Anyone with a fear of clowns should certainly avoid the Hatfield Hotel and its Shoreline Restaurant, on Lowestoft Esplanade, which is where the clowns will be staying.

But, of course, you can't be a clown without wanting to entertain and there will also be two evening shows for the public at the Seagull Theatre in Pakefield, Lowestoft, on Feb 24 and 25 titled A Clown Extravaganza that will be just that, with Fool Hardy Circus presenting an array of clowns from the gathering plus Tyrodial Field, billed as Britain's top diabolist. Tickets are just £5 from the box office: 01502 589726.

(Rumours that you might get a free pie in the interval are unconfirmed... but strongly suggested by the video in this ITV report on last year's gathering.)

According to the theatre, you'll never see such a gathering of clown talent in Britain or anywhere else in the world. You'd need to be a fool to join them, and a bigger fool to miss it!

Click here for my interview with Bobbo - Life of a Clown.

And here for the History of Scary Clowns.

For more on the history of clowns, the nature of clowning and interviews with some of Britain's funniest clowns, including Bippo and Cirque du Hilarious, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus. Click here to read the reviews on Amazon.

Ringling Elephants Retire 18 Months Early in May 2016

If you want to see the last appearance of the elephant parade in the Greatest Show on Earth, you'll have to hurry. The pachyderms will be making their final bow this May.

Last year, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus announced it would be phasing out its iconic rubber mules by 2018, with the 11 animals currently in the show, joining the 29 that the company keeps at its Centre for Elephant Conservation in Florida.

Having progressed quicker than anticipated on the building of new accommodation, however, the elies will now leave the show at the end of its current season in May, and a new elephant-free version of the Ringling show will take to the road in July without the trunks that have been its iconic symbol for more than 100 years.

Feld Entertainment, which owns Ringling, cited changing public tastes and new legislation such as a ban on use of the ankus, bullhook or elephant guide in Los Angeles, which would make it impossible for the circus to appear there.

The elephants new role will include assisting in cancer research. The low incidence of cancer in elephants has led some scientists to believe that their blood and DNA could be key to finding a cure for cancer.

The retirement of the Ringling elephants is seen as a victory for animal rights groups that have long picketed the show and called for an end to all animals in circus. But are claims of cruelty justified?

Click here to read my piece on Ringling Elephants and the Ankus - Is it time to let circuses off the hook?

Me and the elephant

Read about my meeting with Britain's last circus elephants in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

Circus Mania news feed and search facility now open!

Circus Mania
author Douglas McPherson
@CircusDouglas

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls... step right up to gasp at two wonderous advances in technology brought to the Circus Mania blog at great, I mean no expense whatsoever.

Up there on your right... the new search bar! Just type in the name of a circus, artiste, act, trick or any other search term of your choice, and if it's mentioned anywhere on this blog, the relevant pages will appear right here, before your very eyes! Go on, try it!

Scroll down on the right hand side, meanwhile, and you will find the Circus News Feed, bringing you the latest circus news, stories, issues and reviews from news sources everywhere as soon as the news breaks!

If it happens in the circus in 2016, you'll find it right here on the Circus Mania blog!

And to make sure you don't miss anything, follow me on Twitter @CircusDouglas where I'll be tweeting new blog posts as they are posted. I'll also be tweeting some of the gems from the Circus Mania archives including book and DVD reviews, interviews and feature.

Unfortunate slogan of the year - from the RSPCA

Thanks to Save UK Circus for this!

Death of a Lion Tamer's Wife: Mai Stephens 1924 - 2015

Mai Stephens, who has died aged 91, brought glamour to the act of Ireland’s most famous lion tamer, her husband, the self-styled ‘Captain’ Bill Stephens. Her most dangerous stunt was bending over a rack of sharp knives while a lion leapt over her.

Because of her dark hair and exotic beauty, Stephens liked to claim his wife came from “the East” - although she came from no further east than East Wall Road, a few streets from where he grew up in the Dublin suburb of Fairview.

She was born Margaret Carton on November 5 1924 and brought up by her grandmother. She met Bill Stephens while they were both in their teens and they married in October 1942.

At the time, Bill was working as a welder by day and playing drums in Billy Carter’s swing band at night. When a big top pitched up beside the Arcadia ballroom where he was playing, he and Mai decided to run away with the circus.

Initially, Bill played in the circus band, but soon acquired a lion cub called Sultan from a performer who was leaving the show. With no previous experience, he trained the animal as if it were a dog and went on to develop a unique act that mixed lions with Alsatians. Mai, meanwhile, walked around the ring draped with snakes.

Stephens modelled himself on Clyde Beatty, the whip-cracking big cat tamer of America’s Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, who was familiar to Irish audiences through movie serials such as The Lost Jungle. Clad in safari-style costumes, the Stephenses travelled Ireland with John Duffy’s Circus in an act called Jungle Capers.


Their stunts included Stephens feeding a lion from his own mouth and a lion leaping through a hoop above Mai’s head. The highlight was a ‘bouncing lions’ routine, performed in a small wagon pushed into the big top by a tractor.

Circus historian Michael Ingoldsby saw the act when he was 10-years-old and describes it as “The most thrilling act I’ve ever seen in the circus. The lions did a wall of death. They ran around the sides of the wagon, and it was rocking from side to side. People were breathless, because you didn’t know if the wagon was going to turn over. You couldn’t tell if Stephens was chasing the lions or the lions were chasing him, and the remarkable thing was, on cue at the end, they just stopped dead.”

When the circus was off the road for the winter, the Stephenses returned to Fairview and kept the lions in a rented shed behind a high street garage on Merville Avenue. On November 11 1951, a lioness called Sleika escaped onto the streets of Dublin, pounced on an apprentice mechanic called Andy Massey and seriously wounded Stephens as he tried to recapture her.

The incident made headlines around the world and led to the couple playing a Christmas season with Chipperfield’s Circus in Dublin. But they also came under financial pressure when Massey sued.
Stephens dreamed of making the big time in America and to increase the appearance of danger in his act went against all advice to buy a particularly ferocious male lion from Dublin Zoo.

On January 27 1953, he and Mai were visited at the winter quarters of Fossett’s Circus by a talent scout from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus - the famed Greatest Show on Earth. Stephens was so keen to impress that he wore a new suit in the lion cage. His male lion failed to recognise his scent in the unfamiliar clothes and mauled him to death in front of his wife.

After her husband’s death, Mai returned to Fairview and took a job as an usherette at the Bohemian cinema. The following year, she met her second husband, Joe Tracy, who worked for the seed and grain merchants Dardis & Dunne. They married in 1959 and lived in a corporation house at 1 East Wall Road, the street where she grew up.

Throughout her second marriage, Mai seldom mentioned her previous life in the circus. Her two children only knew that she was sentimentally attached to a small toy circus set. When a circus came to town, she would park outside and listen to the music but never ventured into the big top.

After a stroke in 2011, Mai was left partially paralysed and unable to speak. She moved into the Marymount Care Centre in Westmanstown, County Dublin. It was there that she was tracked down by filmmaker Joe Lee for a brief but moving final scene in his documentary, Fortune’s Wheel - The Life and Legacy of the Fairview Lion Tamer. Released this year, the doc was named Best Irish Film at the Dublin Film Festival.

Mai Tracy was born November 5 1924 and died November 27, 2015. She is survived by her husband Joe, son Martin and daughter Caroline.

For more tales from the big top, read Circus Mania, the book described by the Mail on Sunday as "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." Click here to read the reviews.

Circus Girl Falls but The Show Goes On

This was the shocking scene at the Shaherezada circus in Kirov, Russia as an acrobat fell from high in the big top and lay unmoving in the sawdust circle.

The show had just begun, the camels and horses of the animal parade had just left the ring. Angelina was hanging above them, waiting to begin her act when she lost her grip and fell.

Fortunately, she made a full recovery and wrote on social media:

"The circus is living art. It is not like a movie with many stunts.

"You polish your skills throughout the years. It seems that I made a terrible mistake somewhere along the way.

"Thank you very much to the amazing angel that protects me.

"I disappointed the whole crew and of course our guests.

"But this did not affect the show. Soon I will back and prove to myself that I am a true artist."

But the incident could have been far worse in a branch of show business where there is no computer generated trickery, just real performers taking real risks and sometimes taking fatal falls.

Click here to read my Daily Telegraph article on When Circus Stunts Go Fatally Wrong.

And click here to read an extract from Circus Mania in which I talk to aerial silk artist Eva Garcia just days before she fell and died during a performance at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome.

The term bravery is often bandied in the arts. Usually it means no more than an unusual choice of song. For those with circus blood, it's a daily way of life and sometimes death.

Happy 2016

And thanks to Bristol-based circus makers Cirque Bijou for the calendar from which the above image is taken. Bijou specialise in big outdoor stunts and the high wire act was part of the launch of Bristol 2015 European Green Capital. Photo: Andre Pattenden.