Local Home-Building Company Demolishes Ties With Animal-Exploiting Circus After PETA Push

For Immediate Release:
December 7, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Owensboro, Ky. – In another big blow to the Hadi Shrine Circus, which refuses to stop forcing exploited animals to perform, locally based, award-winning home-building and design company Jagoe Homes pulled the plug on its significant sponsorship of the circus, thanking PETA in a letter for “changing the world on how circuses are handling wild animals” and expressing hope that “maybe all animals will be out of the circus someday.”

An elephant is exploited during a Shrine circus performance. Credit: PETA

The Hadi Shrine Circus in Indiana 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. This year, the circus used camels, bison, and ponies as well as eight 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.

“Jagoe Homes wasted no time in taking a wrecking ball to its sponsorship of the Hadi Shrine Circus, in which animals are bullied under the big top,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on other companies still bankrolling the few remaining circuses with cruel animal acts to take note and follow suit.”

Shrine circuses in Canada haven’t used wild animals in years, the Western Montana Shrine Circus ended wild-animal acts, and earlier this year, the Moolah Shrine Circus—which previously dropped big-cat and bear acts—ended its use of elephants.

In thanks, PETA is sending Jagoe Homes a box of delicious vegan chocolates. The company joins Polyram Plastic Industries, paint manufacturer PPG Industries, and health and nutrition company DSM in cutting 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”—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.