Dear Rick Outzen,
Just finished reading your article about Cole Bros Circus, and I’d like to thank you for bringing this circus animal abuse to forefront.
I would like to share with you my experience when I went to the Pensacola Fairgrounds on Saturday to check on the elephants Viola, Nina and Libby that are touring with Cole Bros. For several years I have been following this circus across the country via the Internet so I went out to observe the elephants while they were giving rides to the public, these elephants all exhibited unhealthy signs, Libby was penned up and swaying her trunk and body in a rhythmic manner while Viola and Nina were giving rides, I watched with sadness as these elephants walked in circles with their heads hung down, mouth gaped open, and their eyes cast downward, their faces were blank, and both elephants had cracks in their nails that needed to be treated.
I took this opportunity to approach John Caudill aka John Walker lll, who is Cole’s head elephant handler. I had a picture of the elephant Delhi with me and handed it to him and said do you remember Delhi he said he did and that she was a sweet elephant, I replied I thought he would remember her because he poured straight formaldehyde on her two infected front feet. The USDA fined all of these men and forced John Cuneo to turn all his elephants over to Sanctuaries in order to keep his Tiger permits. Unfortunately for these tigers they are still being forced to perform with Cole Bros Circus and other circuses. Needless to say our conversation became animated, but I wanted to make sure he knew that at least one person there knew about his vicious reputation for abusing circus animals, and anyone standing next to us learned about him too.
http://www.dm.usda.gov/oaljdecisions/AWA_03_0023_032904.pdf
Education is essential to stopping this animal abuse for entertainment. Thank you for putting it out there.
Sincerely,
CJ Myers