The San Diego County Fair has stubbornly refused to end its decades-long affiliation with notorious animal abuser Have Trunk Will Travel (HTWT), despite being fully aware of video footage released by Animal Defenders International.

The controversial traveling elephant show rents out pachyderms to the entertainment industry, stages circuslike events and offers elephant rides at $500 an hour. The company offers elephant rides at regional fairs and zoos, and at wedding events. The also provide elephants for films.

The company uses contoversial chains and has been shown on video jabbing screaming elephants with electric prods and bullhooks —sharp, long-handled metal-tipped weapons with a clawed-end resembling fireplace pokers that can leave painful welts, abscesses, and puncture wounds on elephants' sensitive skin. HTWT also uses electric prods in the belly and genital area. These inhumane "training tools" are used to discipline elephants and force them to perform tricks. This training traumatizes and stresses elephants.

Elephants are beaten and shocked, as shown here, caught on video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50wBdPhBQGo

To put traumatized, stressed elephants in dangerously close proximity to the public is simply asking for trouble. Since 1990, at least 14 human deaths and 122 injuries in the U.S. have been attributed to elephants. Many of these incidents involved elephants who are used for rides. Ban elephant rides with elephants obtained from  the Have Trunk Will Travel company.

Donna O'Leary
Executive Assistant at the Fairgrounds,
Email: doleary@sdfair.com

The San Diego County Fair has stubbornly refused to end its decades-long affiliation with notorious animal abuser Have Trunk Will Travel (HTWT), despite being fully aware of video footage released by Animal Defenders International.

The controversial traveling elephant show rents out pachyderms to the entertainment industry, stages circuslike events and offers elephant rides at $500 an hour. The company offers elephant rides at regional fairs and zoos, and at wedding events. The also provide elephants for films.

The company uses contoversial chains and has been shown on video jabbing screaming elephants with electric prods and bullhooks —sharp, long-handled metal-tipped weapons with a clawed-end resembling fireplace pokers that can leave painful welts, abscesses, and puncture wounds on elephants' sensitive skin. HTWT also uses electric prods in the belly and genital area. These inhumane "training tools" are used to discipline elephants and force them to perform tricks. This training traumatizes and stresses elephants.

Elephants are beaten and shocked, as shown here, caught on video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50wBdPhBQGo

To put traumatized, stressed elephants in dangerously close proximity to the public is simply asking for trouble. Since 1990, at least 14 human deaths and 122 injuries in the U.S. have been attributed to elephants. Many of these incidents involved elephants who are used for rides. Ban elephant rides with elephants obtained from  the Have Trunk Will Travel company.