There’s something about the timelessness of traveling shows. The big tent is a temporary, bright and magical venue for acrobatics and derring-do. It’s an attraction that dates back thousands of years — at least eight decades in the Miller family, whose members have owned and operated the Carson & Barnes 3-ring circus since its founding in the 1930s. The big top came to Corvallis on Tuesday to present two shows at the Benton County Fairgrounds.

In a press release to the media, Doug “Poppa the Clown” Munsell invited the public to an early show, which we photograped in today’s edition. It began at 10 a.m., when the circus’ three massive elephants helped to put up the huge big-top tent that can accommodate up to 2,200 spectators.

A petting zoo travels with the circus. It features a “zebu,” (like a cow/camel cross) a zebra, pygmy hippo, pygmy goats, llamas, an alpaca and a burrow.

Frankly, that’s the part we have ambivalent feelings about. It’s delightful to pet the velvety muzzle of a camel. (No, they do not spit, as a general rule). And who cannot fail to thrill at the elephants? But it’s less exciting when you consider the cost to the animals.

Space prevents us from rehashing the 1999 scandal involving Carson & Barnes when the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released an underground video that showed Carson & Barnes’ elephant trainer Tim Frisco repeatedly urging a group of trainers-in-training to aggressively dig a hooked rod into the elephants’ legs. It’s called a bull hook, and he told the trainers they needed to dig it into the elephants’ legs hard, to “make them scream,” in order to get them to mind the trainer.

The video still can be found online. Munsell’s reaction Tuesday: The video was “spliced together,” he said, although he confirmed that Frisco was fired and the USDA, which regulates the use of animals in traveling shows, fined the circus $400.

In a Aug. 18 letter to Corvallis mayor Charlie Tomlinson, PETA representatives urged the city to outlaw the use of bullhooks on animals that appear in Corvallis.

Tomlinson told a Gazette-Times reporter that the circus is at the fairgrounds, which is outside city limits. We were unable to get an immediate reaction from Benton County, but here wasn’t time to enact such legislation anyway, even if officials wanted to.

Frankly it is audience reaction that has the most influence in this matter. If enough people support the circus without the animals, that would signal it’s time to retire that portion of the big-top acts.

However, Munsell said that wasn’t likely. The Oklahoma-based circus’ Web site at www.carsonbarnescircus.com/animal/

animal.html states its position: Their elephants are pampered, and they don’t mind being transported all around the country for eight months out of the year, they contend. The animal perform, seven days a week, two shows a day, Munsell said. The circus stays for one-day performances, but never for more than 100 miles.

Munsell said the animals belong with the circus. That’s too bad.

We can’t believe that animals don’t mind being crammed into moving windowless enclosures and caged between shows in electrical fencing.

Munsell said that no electric prods are used in training the elephants. The trainers use what he called a “guiding tool” to get the attention of the elephants. It’s also known as a bull hook, he said.