Bob Barker Supports Animal Protection Law

Bob Barker, former host of popular daytime game show The Price is Right, came on down to Capital Hill yesterday to protest mistreatment of circus animals.

Barker has long been associated with animal rights causes, ending every episode of The Price is Right with the signoff Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered. This week, he was lobbying for passage of a bill that would regulate how performing animals are trained, CNN reported.

How do they train them? They have to dominate the animal, Barker said according to CNN. How do they dominate the animal? They beat it, with clubs, fists, black jacks, ax handles, golf clubs. They shock it with all sorts of electric devices. They use bull hooks on them they even deprive them of food and even water in order to make them do these tricks.

Barker sat with another celebrity champion, actress Jorja Fox, and Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) according to the Washington Post. The Post reported that Moran doesn't have high hopes for the bill, called he Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act.

After the testimony, Barker told the Huffington Post flat out that he'd like to see popular circus Ringling Brother shut down, and that the circus industry is animal exploitation. It's heartbreaking.

Barker, Fox and Moran were also joined by representatives from the Performing Animal Welfare Society and Animal Defenders International.

Moran, the sponsor of the bill, acknowledged that this may not seem like an important issue compared things like unemployment. It didn't mean it should be discussed, he said.

There are, of course, plenty of significant pressing economic issues facing our country right now that do also demand action, Moran said in session, according to Huffington Post, but that doesn't also mean we can't also find time to focus public attention on examples of fundamental animal mistreatment.