When the Roman soldiers threw their slaves, criminals and undesirables into the Colosseum and then unleashed the savage man-eating lions on them, everyone knew what the gruesome result would be.
However, terrible as it was, it was the basic start of man against man. beast mythology that has continued for over two thousand years. Many circus advertisements or circus posters from the mid to late 18th century depicted a circus performer in Roman gladiator costume as he wrestled with a lion, or even stood with one foot on the lion as the branded conqueror of a beast. so fierce.
As the development of a circus became a brainchild, simple feats of bravery were considered exceptional behavior and were held in awe and awe by all who witnessed such a circus act. It is this form of bravery that allows us to document the beginning of man and the wild animals of the circus together in the same cage at the same time. Van Amburgh is given due credit for being America’s first animal subjugator when he entered a den of man-eating circus lions and returned unharmed. Usually these were the cages in which the circus animals were kept. Then the circus performer entered this den of dangerous inhabitants of the dark and humid jungle in order to stand or even sit in the same cage with these animals during a parade or as a main attraction. The attraction of the circus animals and humans together was exciting to say the least.
While lions and tigers were the most commonly used circus animals due to their size, colors, and availability to purchase, a wide variety of animals were used in circus acts or caged displays, including leopards, bears, and other feline creatures. In the late 1800s, a new turn of events was taking place with the evolution of this encounter between animal and man moving into a huge portable animal cage in which animals could enter, move about, and return to their burrows. . This became known as the Steel Arena as these portable cages were made of steel and weighed one ton creating a large arena to work in. The combination of the wild animal and the circus performer under the big circus tents was becoming an amazing attraction.
The European influence was new and captivating when visitors to the great shows at Coney Island or the world’s fairs in Chicago and St. Louis saw these great circus animals enter this huge steel cage and really do something in the form of a performance at the standing on pedestals and keeping the circus performer sitting in front of them reading a newspaper immobile in various formations. People gasped in terror as they watched these remarkable circus performers enter a steel cage filled with five or six dangerous animals, work with them, and one couple made actual contact with the animals before returning to the relative safety associated with being out of doors. the caged sand
In the early 1900s, American trainers were becoming heavily involved with presenting these wild animal acts. Some of the early animal trainers like Louis Roth started out by training their own act and then went on to train more acts that other people ended up doing. These performances were not limited to just lions and tigers. There were full acts with up to 15 polar bears, black and spotted leopards, jaguars and then the most incredible exhibits of all, the mixed acts.
The circus animals were wild-caught, just like all zoo animals were at the turn of the century. So to have a jungle-raised animal that’s grown up and never been around a human before, then have a person brave enough to work with them was just amazing. The circus performers who entered the large steel cage took their lives into their own hands every time they did so. In general, lions and tigers were described as hating each other and holding everyone’s neck hair up until the trainer came out and the last animal was safely stowed away again. People stood in long lines to buy their tickets to the circus.
One such young man, named Clyde Beatty, was a boy from Bainbridge, Ohio, working as a groomer for a circus when he got the chance to get inside the big steel cage. He never looked back. After more than forty years of battling the deadly combination of lions and tigers on a fast and exciting ride that included up to 40 animals at a time, Clyde also found time to appear in movies and commercials and owned his own circus. . His legacy was infamous and his name so well known that for 40 years after his death, his name was still on the circus title.
At the same time that Clyde Beatty was establishing himself as a true circus performer and master of the steel arena, another man, Terrell Jacobs, the Lion King, was already well established in the large cage filled with more than 50 of these dangerous animals of circus under the big circus tents. One man’s ability to walk in with 50 deadly enemies, perform with them in ways we never thought possible, and return safely brought the crowd to its feet every time his circus act ended. The circus clowns always followed them to bring joy and laughter to everyone and to give everyone a moment or two to slow their own hearts down again.
Men weren’t the only circus performers entering the steel arena daily. Lucia Zora in Sells-Floto was in the cage before the 1920s with her hugely appreciated circus act and her circus elephants too. Other women followed her, but no one took more risks and understood her animals better than the legendary tiger trainer, Mabel Stark. She knew her animals well and even raised some of them herself. Standing in front of her huge circus animals is one thing, but Mabel took her exciting circus acts to new heights when she began fighting a tiger every day. Two and three times a day. The Ringling brothers. and Barnum & Bailey Circus would have up to three wild animal circus acts at the same time.
The largest displays of animals working together were mixed acts where more than one species worked at the same time. Many of the acts incorporated various species of animals. Alfred Court was instrumental in utilizing mixed breeds by having leopards and dogs together or the large groups with lions, tigers, polar bears, Great Danes, leopards and pumas all together at the same time. What made it even more interesting was a circus elephant, horse or a combination of both in the big cage with a lion or tiger riding the elephant. The early 1960s saw a beautiful mixed act featuring leopards, wolf hybrids, and a zebra.
In an effort to always perform better than ever, more exotic animals were introduced to the performances, such as the incredible snow leopards or cheetahs. In the last 40 years alone, we have seen the arrival of a white tiger on American soil. This magnificent animal has been bred many times over the centuries to allow genetics to now offer striped white tigers, unstriped white tigers, golden tabby, a gray striped white tiger, regular colored tigers and reports from China of a bluish/greyish tiger. The Circus has offered circus acts with these white tigers and a mixed variety of these colors, as these beautiful circus animals displayed the natural beauty.
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 took note of the loss of animals in the wild and prohibited the removal of animals from the wild for commercial purposes. Zoos and circuses couldn’t get animals from the wild, so captive breeding programs have supplied all circus animals in the United States ever since, and most of the feline family or “big cats” usually just live between 18 and 20 years old. Unfortunately extinction is forever. Of the eight tiger subspecies in the wild, the Bengal, Siberian, and Sumatran tigers still exist and the other five are now considered extinct.
