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Caged protester draws police, press and gawks
Thursday, September 7, 2000
By GORDY HOLT
Clad in only a bikini bottom and paint, a 24-year-old Bellevue woman sat in a wire cage during yesterday's lunch hour at Westlake Plaza. As tiger impersonators go, Amie Richards was alluring but tame.
Her exhibition was conceived as a silent act of protest against the confinement of wild animals by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which starts a four-day Seattle run Sept. 14 at Key Arena.
It set the stage for Richards, whose appearance was fashioned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal-rights organization that has been dogging Ringling for years.
"The (federal) Animal Welfare Act is the only thing guarding over these animals in this country," said PETA spokeswoman Kristie Sigmon. "But all that does is require that these creatures have enough space in their cages to stand up and turn around."
Ringling spokeswoman Katherine Ort-Mabry denied PETA's assertions, saying that her company -- and its Virginia-based parent, Feld Entertainment -- obeys all laws governing the treatment of animals.
She criticized PETA for "such cheap and irresponsible tricks as resorting to the exploitation of a woman's body, just to get media attention."
In the plaza yesterday, Richards simply sat on her knees, elbows to her chest, "paws" posed catlike on the thin wire mesh of her cage.
Why expose herself to the gawks of downtown lunchgoers?
"I hope to educate people," she said, adding that her show would be "nothing compared to what circus animals live through day to day."
A Sonoma Valley, Calif., transplant who does clerical work for a living, Richards drew the expected lunchtime crowd, which included 10 police officers, nearly as many photographers and a pair of British tourists, David and Anita Chapman.
The Chapmans were on their way to Bruce Lee's grave on Capitol Hill, but were drawn by the Westlake crowd.
"It's marvelous what she's doing," enthused Anita Chapman.
"I agree," said her husband. "We don't allow animal circuses anymore in Britain. Banned them two years ago. Circuses still perform, just without animals."
But feelings in the plaza were mixed.
"Ridiculous. . . . Stupid!" said Skip Herrmann, 56, who drove his battery-powered scooter onto the commons and unsheathed a camera.
University of Washington student Adam Baldridge of Maple Valley also scoffed. "What are they trying to say here, shut down all the zoos?"
Leaning against a lamp post, sheet-metal tradesman Dave Hein of Kent was on the painted tiger's side.
"Took my kids to the circus some years ago and was appalled at the whole thing," he said.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
The Greatest Show on Earth, as it has been billed for more than a century, retained its place on Seattle's 2000 entertainment schedule after a bruising debate in City Council chambers. In February, the council voted 5-4 to reject a proposed ban on exotic animals.
Amie Richards, 24, poses half-naked in a cage as construction worker Charlie Royer pauses nearby yesterday at Westlake Mall. Richards and others from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were at the mall to protest animal suffering before the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to KeyArena beginning Sept. 14.
Paul Joseph Brown/P-I
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