By Frank James
The story of the zebra which briefly escaped Thursday in Atlanta from the Ringling Brothers and Barnam and Bailey Circus and tied up rush hour traffic till it was corralled has drawn a reaction from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
PETA is asking for the U.S. Agriculture Department which has regulatory responsibility for circus animals to launch an investigation. Peta notes that the circus has had other zebra escapes and asks that the USDA prohibit the animals from traveling and performing with the circus which.
Here's PETA's letter to the USDA:
Dear Dr. Gipson:
Please consider this letter an official request for the USDA to investigate the following concerns regarding Feld Entertainment, d/b/a "Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus" in Vienna, Va., license #52-C-0137.
According to a February 18, 2010, Associated Press report, a zebra with Ringling's red unit led police on a downtown chase that ended on highway connector Interstate 75-85 during the afternoon rush hour. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution article mentioned that the zebra escaped the control of his handler and was "spotted all over town." The zebra was reportedly "galloping between lanes of traffic on the Downtown Connector before his capture." Members of the public were put a risk by the escaped zebra and one bystander is quoted in the article stating, "all of a sudden a...zebra comes running down the street like a car."
The zebra apparently escpaed through a hole in the fence during a training exercise and was reportedly loose for 40 minutes. As you may recall, on June 18, 2007, March 3, 2008, and March 20, 2008, PETA sent concerns to the USDA regarding zebras on the red unit escaping the direct control of handlers.
PETA believes that Ringling is in violation of handling regulations, specifically Section 2.131 (b)(1), which requires animals to be handled "as expeditiously and carefully as possible in a manner that does not cause trauma, overheating, excessive cooling, behavioral stress, physical harm, or unnecessary discomfort" (emphasis added), and Section 2.131 (c)(1), which states that "any animal must be handled so there is minimal risk of harm to the animal and to the public, with sufficient distance and/or barriers between the animal and the general viewing public so as to assure the safety of animals and the public" (emphasis added).
Because of chronic problems with zebras escaping, PETA urges the USDA to immediately remove the zebras from travel and performances. Please also ensure that the zebra who ran loose in Atlanta, identified as 12-year-old Lima, is receiving adequate veterinary care for the cuts he sustained on his hooves and for any other injuries and that the safety of the animals and the public is protected.
Please advise me of the USDA's actions in this matter. I can be reached at xxx-xxx-xxxx or xxxxxxxxx@peta.org. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
RaeLeann Smith, Circus Specialist
cc: Elizabeth Goldentyer, regional director, Eastern Region
Robert Gibbens, regional director, Western Region
Saturday, February 20, 2010
....Runaway Zebra Spurs PETA To Ask USDA To Ban Circus Use....
Friday, February 19, 2010
....A deadline for a circus dream....
....City plans to tear down dilapidated Venice arena....
By Kim Hackett
Published: Friday, February 19, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 10:40 p.m.
Fifth-generation trapeze artist Tito Gaona has dreamed for years of a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus museum on the circus grounds where he grew up and Gunther Gebel-Williams trained lions and tigers during nearly three decades of winters in the city.
Now Gaona's dream has a deadline.
City officials say the old circus buildings must come down in the next few months to make way for future development.
The former circus arena, north of the Circus Bridge, is on valuable city airport land near the Intracoastal Waterway. Since the circus left in 1991, Venice officials have balked at spending money to preserve it.
"It is a landmark," said Gaona, who revived his Venice Circus Arts Foundation last month to save at least Gebel-Williams' animal training building. "It is the first arena the circus performed in after the big top."
Assistant City Manager Nancy Woodley has told the City Council that the buildings are filled with asbestos and have deteriorated beyond saving.
The council plans to spend $250,000 to demolish the circus complex and create a plan to develop the land.
Mayor Ed Martin said he did not know if it was feasible to save the training building.
"It's not something that has really been discussed," Martin said.
Gaona started a save-the-arena campaign in 2003, creating a nonprofit foundation and collecting 500 signatures, but the momentum slowed when the real estate market heated up and the city planned to develop a marina and hotel on airport land.
The foundation dissolved a year later.
Gaona has since filed papers with the state for a new one.
Volunteers hope to again gather signatures and build support to save the animal training building and turn it into a museum, next to where Gaona has been teaching trapeze since 1998.
Gaona shakes his head thinking of the area memorials to the circus: the Circus Bridge over the Intracoastal, a mural on a wall along the Tamiami Trail and streets named for the circus.
A museum would be an authentic memorial, he said.
"Where would that all be without the circus?" Gaona said.
The circus had its last performance in Venice in 1991, and departed to Tampa after the city and the railroad refused to upgrade the railroad tracks.
Venice rented the arena over the years but it has been vacant since 2000.
Photos of the arena and Gaona's trapeze classes chronicle the complex's decay.
A decade ago, city officials estimated it would cost $450,000 to rehabilitate the 5,100-seat arena. The YMCA and other circuses wanted to lease it.
Now, gouged walls, graffiti and seven-foot weeds greet Gaona every day he drives past the arena through a rickety fence to his outdoor trapeze school. Last year someone started a fire on a couch inside the arena.
Gebel-Williams' old training building, built to resemble a big top, looked freshly painted white with red wood edging in a 2004 photo.
The building paint has faded and the red wood dangles off the sides of the building. Inside, the sun shines through gaping rusted holes in the roof. A ripped, faded director's chair with the name "Tito" leans against one wall and a cluster of rusting spotlights against another.
Even local historians have said the time may have passed for saving the buildings.
"You have to pick your battles," said Betty Intagliata, former president of the Venice Area Historical Society and chairwoman of the Sarasota County Historical Commission.
Gaona said he cannot let the building come down without one last effort to save it. "They want us to forget," Gaona said. "But we won't forget."
This story appeared in print on page BN1
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Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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....Circus World People Gather to Remember the Park....
By Gary White
THE LEDGER
Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:54 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:54 p.m.
A shopping center occupies the southeast corner of the intersection of Interstate 4 and U.S. 27, housing a collection of chain stores - Target, Best Buy, PetSmart - that could be in Dayton or Dubuque as easily as Davenport.
There isn't a trace of the distinctive presence the location once held, a short-lived theme park called Circus World.
But Dan Stapleton remembers the place, and he's not alone. Stapleton, who worked as a magician at the defunct attraction from 1978 to 1981, has organized a reunion of former Circus World employees. They will gather Friday, not under a big top but in the ballroom of a resort in Kissimmee.
Stapleton said the idea of a reunion has been germinating almost since Circus World folded its tent 24 years ago.
"Every year I hear from someone who worked at Circus World, and every one of them said the same thing over the last 20 years - 'We ought to have a reunion,'" said Stapleton, an Orlando resident. "So six months ago I came home and said, 'Guess what? ... I'm going to do it.' So I just started contacting people who I knew (worked at Circus World), which weren't very many. Then I put it on Facebook, and it just took off."
Stapleton expects more than 100 former Circus World workers at the reunion, with attendees coming from as far away as California, Washington state and New York. The reunion will take place at the Radisson Resort Orlando-Celebration, where Stapleton works as director of entertainment.
Stapleton, 57, said the gathering will include a former ringmaster, trapeze artists and clowns, along with people who worked on the technical crew and in food service, security, park operations and administration.
Circus World, originally known by the unwieldy name of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus World Showcase, opened in 1974 and last until 1986, experiencing two changes of owners. The original admission fee was $1.95 for adults. Attendance peaked at 1.3 million in 1975, and the attraction had about 450 employees.
The centerpiece at Circus World was the Showcase, a 27,000-square-foot building designed as a big top and painted in white and red stripes. It housed a 600-seat IMAX theater, promoted at the time as the world's largest indoor theater, which showed a circus-oriented film.
The Showcase featured trapeze acts, elephant performances and other typical circus fare.
Stapleton performed in the James A. Bailey Theater of Illusion, which held about 200 people. He said at one point he was doing nine shows a day.
The attraction had many rides, including a wooden roller coaster, the Florida Hurricane, that Stapleton said was a favorite of the late Michael Jackson. A 150-foot-high Ferris wheel offered views over acres of citrus groves.
Jerry Darkey worked as a clown at Circus World in the early 1980s, when he was fresh out of Clown College, then located in Venice but no longer in existence. His companion, Paula Large, worked as a caricature artist and later as a lighting and sound technician from 1980 to 1984. Now living in Orlando, they still work in entertainment and plan to attend the reunion.
"We thought, 'Well, what a great idea, and it's probably long overdue,' " Darkey said. "Just being in the show was always fun - keeping my eyes open for the elephants."
The Circus World site was later reconfigured as Boardwalk and Baseball, which lasted only a few years. The last remnants of that attraction were eventually razed for the construction of the Posner Commons shopping center.
"People ask me, 'Why did Circus World not make it?'" Stapleton said. "Back then it seemed like a long way from Orlando or the other parks. It really wasn't."
Stapleton said the high cost of employing live entertainment was one reason the park didn't survive.
Friday's reunion will recreate some of that entertainment. Stapleton said he will revive some of his magic tricks, and jugglers and clowns are also expected to perform.
Stapleton will also be showing a medley of home movies shot at Circus World that capture performers in action. He said memorabilia from the park will be on display, with one former employee pledging to bring enough to cover three tables. A meal will be served as well.
Based on the responses he has received so far, Stapleton said only a small percentage of former Circus World employees remain employed in similar jobs. He said members of the Flying Robins, a trapeze act, still do circus work, and some of the technical crew now work for rock bands.
The reunion will pay tribute to those Stapleton called "circus angels," former employees who are no longer alive. Stapleton said he knows of at least 40 of them.
Stapleton asks anyone interested in attending to notify him in advance at 407-491-3287 or magicdanstap4u@aol.com.
[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518.
This story appeared in print on page B7
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged
IF YOU GO What: Reunion of Circus World employees
Where: Radisson Resort Orlando-Celebration, 2900 Parkway Blvd, Kissimmee
When: 6:30 p.m. Friday
How much: $35
Phone: 407-291-3287
E-mail: magicdanstap4u@aol.com
