Standing against the circus

Two elephants slowly shifted left and right at the direction of a man’s black baton in the parking lot behind Fireman’s Memorial Field in Oceanside on Monday. A crowd gathered to watch the Oceanside Fire Department give the pachyderm’s, part of the Cole Bros. Circus, their daily bath.

At the entrance to the area, a lone woman stood with a sign of a baby elephant, shackled and subdued; a man standing in the foreground held a bullhook by his side. The lone protestor was Rebecca Vargas, 33, a Valley Stream resident and member of the activist group Long Island Orchestrating for Nature. The group advocates for many local conservation causes, she said, but they have a special focus on the treatment of circus elephants.

“They have no life,” she said. “This is their life.”

Vargas said her organization strongly opposes the training practices used to compel such large animals to respond to their handlers, which she said can be viewed on YouTube videos. She called the treatment cruel, and said LION focuses on the Cole Bros. Circus, which brings the animals to town each year, because that cruelty is so blatant.

Vargas said the treatment is especially cruel because it has no justification beyond entertainment, and said she hoped people would reconsider supporting the circus. She said that LION encourages the public to support acts that don’t use animals, like Cirque du Soleil.

While the circus has complained in the past about her group’s protests, which LION president John Di Leonardo said swelled to about 30 people while the shows were being performed, LION members are peaceful and seek only to inform the public, Vargas said. As she stood with her sign, a woman passing by in a minivan pulled over and spoke with her.

“Many people are aware,” Vargas said. “People thank me for what we’re doing.”

A request for comment from the Cole Bros. Circus was not immediately returned. The show was in Oceanside until Wednesday, and is moving east on Long Island, though it has been denied permits by several municipalities in recent years, according to Di Leonardo.

While animals’ suffering is the main issue, Vargas said, she claimed her opposition to their treatment is also about what the children who visit the circus are being taught.

“We have to foster respect for nature, and this is the opposite of that,” she said. “This is domination.”