Joan Jett Demands No Abused Animals at California County Fair

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by Lisa Kalner Williams June 13, 2011
Categories: Animals, Causes, Music
Tags: .

Punk rock pioneer Joan Jett doesn’t give a damn ’bout her bad reputation — but she does care about cruelty inflicted upon elephants in the name of entertainment.

This staunch opponent of animal abuse, like many Ecorazzi readers, knows about the cruel training methods that Have Trunk Will Travel (HTWT) has used on its elephants featured in Britney Spears’ “Circus” video and in the cinematic adaptation of “Water for Elephants.”

Once this “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” singer found out that elephants from HTWT were to be a scheduled attraction at the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds — the same place where Jett will perform on June 30 — she immediately penned a letter to the County Fair board, encouraging them to not bring these elephants to town.

An excerpt of Jett’s letter reads: “I’ve seen the video footage released by Animal Defenders International that shows the owners and trainers with HTWT as they hit elephants as hard as they can with bullhooks and use electric shocks on the animals’ bellies… Please don’t allow the reputation of the fair to be tarnished by its support of cruel elephant rides.”

How will Joan’s letter be received by the board? Will it be enough to persuade them to send HTWT packing?

About Lisa Kalner Williams

Lisa Kalner Williams is a lover of rock 'n' roll and founder of Sierra Tierra Marketing, a social analytics, strategy, and education company. She lives with her vegan family in the Greater Boston area.

View all posts by Lisa Kalner Williams →
  • don miguelo

    Righteous! Thanks Ms. Jett for your letter. Throwing a spotlight onto the usual tides of politics and money can really help. If that doesn’t work this time, may I suggest you run for one of their positions on the County Fair board?!!!

  • Sonia

    How about not playing the show?

  • http://www.herwinsvegancafe.com herwin

    @ Sonia + 1
    right on, very simple just refuse to play the show when there is animal abuse present.
    No bs please about contracts or “the fans”, etc. just walk the talk, please.
    small correction, Joan Jet is not a punk rock pioneer, nor punk rock.

    • don miguelo

      Missed that part about her playing there. She knows that not playing is bad press they don’t want, so she’s giving the board a minute to rethink it’s position more tactfully with this letter first. If they refuse, then she will get out of the contract, I’m sure.

      And then Joan Jett is a pioneer in that she blazed a trail for women as lead singers in rock and roll. She’s not the 1st one, but certainly one of the more sucessful ones in that genre. Her band members were made up of punks from other bands at different times, she has worked with the punk scene for different things, but I agree her sound is much more rock than punk.

      As a punk rocker myself though, I have to say I have a soft spot for Joan Jett’s music despite that! She gets it.

  • Janice

    Wow Herwin…like to see you get out of one of those 20 page contracts. Although if I became famous then I would ensure that animals were always written into my contracts. Obviously she didn’t do that and it will cost her a pretty penny to get out of it now.

rfk-jr
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