The return of the Gartner family’s elephants to Valence d'Agen? We say no, for them

Belinda, Pira and Thai. Three elephants, each around sixty years old, whom we know well. Three lives marked by captivity, coercion and the mechanical repetition of gestures learned in fear. These animals, endowed with exceptional intelligence, are doomed to get back on the road, locked in trucks, moved from town to town in the name of an outdated entertainment -an entertainment built on their suffering.

Our country has committed to banning these shows. The vast majority of the public rejects and shuns them. And yet, in Valence d’Agen, in 2025, a step back in time is coming, orchestrated by trainers known for their brutality.

This show, if it takes place, will be an insult to collective intelligence, to ethics and to the animals themselves.

We will not allow these elephants to grow old on asphalt and under a big top.

A long history of mistreatment

The Gartner family, who perform all over Europe, are not newcomers. Already convicted of animal abuse abroad in the early 2000s, several elephants have already been seized from them, including in France. At the end of 2005, when four of them were to be rescued in Germany following the conviction of their trainer for mistreatment, they “disappeared”. A few days later, One Voice found them, before they were moved again. In early 2006, we managed to rescue Vicky. She had been hidden and abandoned in a closed trailer, without care, chained 24 hours a day, alone, in a critical state of health. Her trunk had been paralyzed by pike blows.

In the 1980s and 1990s, humans were twice killed by Gartner elephants. These tragedies reveal the extreme psychological and physical suffering of these animals, to the point of rupture. And the calamitous management of these trainers.

In 2018, Diana, Vicky’s former companion, died in tragic circumstances. A road accident that should have been avoided, since elephants are not supposed to be in trucks! Do we have to wait for another tragedy before reacting?

2028, an empty promise

Since 2021, the French government has been promising a ban on wild animals in traveling circuses by 2028. In reality, this is nothing of the sort: the government is encouraging trainers to settle down and keep their animals, and is even promising them thousands of euros in order for them to do so!

From now on, it’s the hypocrites’ ball! Is this what we want for the future? Circuses that bring in animals from abroad as they please and send them back once the tour is over? That’s an empty law, easily circumvented, that lets animals suffer in silence…

We must act now!

We call on everyone to mobilize to prevent this disgraceful spectacle from taking place.

• Write to your elected representatives: Write today to the Tarn-et-Garonne prefecture and the Valence d’Agen town hall to demand the cancellation of this event (model letters are available by clicking on the links).
• Contact the prefect on social networks:
  • On X (formerly Twitter): @Prefet_82 In support of One Voice’s action, I ask you to cancel the visit to Valence d’Agen of the Gartner trainers and the three elephants they are holding. Animals are not objects of entertainment. #CirquesSansAnimaux
  • On Instagram: @prefet82 Animals are not objects of entertainment! The law will soon ban their presence in circuses, it’s not to bring them in from abroad! With @onevoiceanimal I call for the cancellation of the visit of the Gartner trainers and their three elephants in Valence d’Agen #CirquesSansAnimaux
• Sign our petition

Today, Samba, for whom we have been fighting since 2002, is the last elephant held by a circus in France. We will do everything we can to ensure that she spends her retirement in a sanctuary where there is a place for her, and to prevent trainers from importing others from abroad, as if they were merchandise.

Elephants, and animals in general, have no place in circuses. Not in 2025, not in 2028, not ever. Their suffering is not a spectacle.