Following talks with PETA and ahead of the Hadi Shrine Circus’ local shows starting on November 23, Polyram Plastic Industries, which previously sponsored the circus, made the compassionate commitment to support only animal-free entertainment going forward.

A wounded elephant at a Shrine Circus performance. Photo: PETA

The Hadi Shrine Circus is among the last remaining shows still exploiting wild animals, who are confined to small crates, kept in shackles, and deprived of any semblance of a natural life. The circus has used elephants from Carson & Barnes, whose head trainer was caught on video viciously attacking an elephant with a bullhook—a weapon that resembles a fireplace poker with a sharp hook on one end—until she screamed in pain.

“Polyram Plastic Industries is doing the right thing in separating itself from the Hadi Shrine Circus, in which wild animals are forced to perform tricks for noisy crowds under the threat of punishment,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on all other circus sponsors to follow its lead and pull their support for these spectacles of suffering.”

Hundreds of venues and dozens of communities across the country prohibit or restrict animal acts, and several Shrine clubs have nixed their animal circuses entirely. Polyram Plastic Industries follows the lead of global health and nutrition company DSM and the world’s largest paint and coatings manufacturer, PPG Industries, which both cut ties with the Hadi Shrine Circus. Sherwin-Williams also advised its local business groups to refrain from sponsoring the circus in the future.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that local animal rights group Evansville Animal Advocacy will hold high-octane protests of the Hadi Shrine Circus shows at the Ford Center each day from November 23 to 26.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.