SPECTACLES
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:
A group of Ecuadoran school children
in late January donated their allowances, sold toys,
and performed on street corners to raise funds to
feed polar bears, elephants, seals, and horses aban-
doned in Quito by the Circus of Czars, from St.
Petersburg, Russia. The circus manager vanished
with the receipts from a successful tour, leaving the
human performers stranded, as creditors seized
their equipment. As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to
press, help was reportedly en route from business
leaders and environmental groups.
The Quebec-originated Cirque du Soeil,
the only big-top touring circus that excludes animal
acts, on January 14 opened a permanent show in a
custom-built Las Vegas theatre––the first Cirque du
Soleil permanent show, and the biggest, with 70
performers, twice the size of the touring show.
Hungary on January 14 banned dog-
fighting and imposed a ban on the import and pos-
session of bandogs and pit bull terriers, as well as a
ban on breeding, training, keeping, or selling any
dog for fighting purposes.
Ron Platt, curator of the List Visual
Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, shocked Boston circa Valentine’s Day
by opening an exhibit of impaled frogs and snakes,
with other animal remains, arranged by Colombian
sculptor Maria Fernanda Cardoso. Protest to MIT at
20 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139.
WSPA investigators on December 31
rescued 280 starving greyhounds from a track on
Margarita Island, Venezuela, that went bankrupt on
December 12. Another 15 dogs had to be eutha-
nized; 61 had already died.
The Dairyland Greyhound Park i n
Kenosha, Wisconsin, has dropped the contract of
kennel owner Herb “Dutch” Koerner, president of
the National Greyhound Association, whose com-
plaints about a dog injury rate triple the norm
brought a state gaming commission probe of track
conditions last summer.
