by Wei-fan Yang
Perhaps this is a common experience in your childhood: Your parents brought you to a circus, where you enjoyed the delightful performances of the animals. Ferocious lions, for example, jumped the ring of fire; fur seals headed different colored balls and even lighted torches; baby chimps impressed you most of all because of their adorable (or laughing) appearance and their comic performances – riding a monocycle, imitating human behavior, and doing ridiculous acrobatics beyond your imagination. However, these pleasing chimps you see are always very young. You may never see an adult chimp performing on the stage. So where are the adult chimps? In fact, most adult chimps die by committing suicide. After baby chimps grow up, it becomes more difficult for trainers to control them and to make them obey orders. According to his observation and analysis, Lev R. Ivanov, a psychologist in Ukraine who has devoted himself to animal welfare protection for almost ten years, has discovered that most adult chimps in circuses, after receiving intensive training since childhood, have become either aggressive or wimpish. This is because when chimps are small, trainers forced them to learn fast and to defer to human discipline, making them feel stress all the time. Even though they can win rewards, say, food or a day-long holiday, more often these chimps are punished because of an unsatisfactory performance. Feeling stressed and frustrated, adult chimps by degree refuse to work, tending to escape from the circus by torturing themselves, so as to smooth over the accumulated pressure in their minds. However, their “anti-work” attitude evokes only punishment. In this way, adult chimps become “mad” – some of them begin to attack their trainers; others of the “wimpish” type might go on a hunger strike or produce other abnormal behavior such as depression. Both types of chimp eventually cannot control their behavior and kill themselves in the end. “Adults chimps kill themselves even in the animal shelter,” says Ivanov. Even though out-of-control adult chimps live in an animal shelter where professionals can take care of them, their illness worsens day by day. Ivanov argues that these chimps fail to get along with their companions, for circus chimps have different habits from the chimps in nature. Adult chimps from the circus “are always excluded from the group,” he said. According to Ivanov’s observation, many will do nothing but focus on a tiny object; they may play a game in which one plays a role of the trainer and the other act as a performer, and scream. One most famous example is Fayina. “She was fine before being sent to the shelter, but she had great difficulty communicating with the other chimps living there for a long period of time.” She felt depressed until one day all the bitterness disappeared – her dead body was found in a deep pool two months after she was sent to the shelter. Then how does a chimp commit suicide? Take Fayina as an example. She was captured by a video camera drowning herself. As for other cases, some chimps choose to starve to death, others decide to knock themselves against a wall, and some even hang themselves if they can get a rope. In fact, experts have limited knowledge about chimps’ suicides, for most of the incidents are covered up in haste. But experts agree that chimp-suicide is difficult to predict in advance. Most chimps who commit suicide are discovered too late and it is hard for veterinarians to rescue them, and Ivanov concludes that it is because they have already “determined to die.” “Committing suicide is a planned project,” he adds. No doubt chimps in the circus bring audiences a wonderful time. They devote themselves (or they are forced to devote themselves) to performance to win two thumbs-up and to earn a nod, enriching trainers’ as well as circus managers’ pockets. However, most people who pay money for an animal show do not realize that their encouragement, support, and contribution is actually an evil force pushing innocent animals on a one-way street toward death. And committing suicide is their way out. a
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May 2024
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