There are so bewilderingly many laws in the Outside World. We of the circus know only one law simple and unfailing. The Show must go on

Two decades ago, animal acts were a big draw in Las Vegas.

Bobby Berosini and his orangutans, who headlined at the Stardust, were familiar to millions, thanks to the publicity from the 1978 film, Every Which Way but Loose, starring Manis, one of Berosini’s orangutans who played Clyde, Clint Eastwood’s sidekick, in the film.

But what led to Berosini’s quick downfall and departure from Las Vegas was a different type of film – a grainy 1989 video taken by a disgruntled dancer showing Berosini mercilessly punching, shaking and striking a forcibly restrained orangutan he used in his act.

The “Spank the Monkey” story, as it was referred to by local newspaper editors, led to numerous lawsuits between People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Bobby and his wife Joan Berosini, culminating in several court rulings requiring the Berosinis to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees to the animals rights organization.

The Berosinis, who paid more than $400,000 to PETA, moved to Costa Rica several years ago, but the controversy over animal acts and attractions in the entertainment capital of the world is far from over.

Today, with the recent departure of Rick Thomas and his white tigers from the Orleans following a six-month engagement, the only remaining animal acts in Las Vegas are the Xtreme Magic show starring Dick Arthur at the Tropicana and the yearly arrival of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus at Orleans Arena.

But animal activists who believe animals are cruelly conditioned to perform in what’s touted as The Greatest Show on Earth say the days of animal acts and animal confinement are coming to an end in Las Vegas and throughout the nation.

“Times are changing, and so is the face of entertainment in Las Vegas,” said Linda Faso, an independent animal rights activist. “Today, people come here to see Cirque de Soleil, a circus without animals.”

Faso noted everyone knows the P.T. Barnum quote about a sucker born every minute.

“Well, anyone who believes that old line from circus performers about how ‘we love our animals’ is certainly a sucker,” Faso said. “Face it, they can’t get those animals to perform on cue for cookies.”

Indeed, not only are animal acts virtually extinct in modern Las Vegas, but animal attractions – even ones that are popular and not especially controversial – are threatened.

Faso is critical of the Dolphin Habitat, run in conjunction with Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden as an “educational and research facility” at the Mirage. The Dolphin Habitat, which recently welcomed the arrival of a healthy 25-pound baby boy dolphin named Sgt. Pepper, hosts educational programs for area students each year.

“Yes, we know about the educational programs and the breeding, but that is not a habitat. It’s a cement fish bowl, and these dolphins are bored out of their minds for their entire lives. In the ocean, these creatures travel vast distances. But here they can’t get away from each other.”

Even the venerable three-acre Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park has not escaped the scrutiny of animal activists.

Over the recent holiday, in the spirit of independence, three PETA volunteers – one of them dressed as a jailhouse chimp behind bars – last week staged a one-hour demonstration in front of the North Rancho Road facility to protest the confinement of Terry the chimpanzee.

Terry lives alone in an indoor-outdoor habitat.

“To keep him in there all alone is solitary confinement,” said James Estevez, who was joined by Osmary Mora, 15, and Oscar Mora, 16, who wore the jailhouse chimp costume. “He should be with other chimpanzees.”

Lisa Wathne, PETA captive exotic animal specialist, said the federal Animal Welfare Act recognizes that chimpanzees and other highly intelligent primates need the companionship of others of their kind, but at zoos they’re separated from their families and “sentenced to an eternity of boredom and loneliness.”

“There is probably nothing more important to a chimp than social companionship,” said Wathne, who wrote to park director Pat Dingle two weeks ago but hasn’t yet heard back from him.

“We would very much like to talk to Pat about Terry,” Wathne said.

Dingle, who has run the city zoo for a quarter century, said he’s already talked to Terry, “and he told me, ‘Don’t throw me away.’”

Dingle, who along with his staff considers Terry to be “part of the family,” is serious when he says he communicates with the 26-year-old chimpanzee. The zoo director also pointed out the chimp lives in a 2,500-square-foot habitat – which is larger than most three-bedroom homes, and is filled with rocks, living plants, a stream and a pond – and the chimp is the darling of the zoo staff.

Terry the chimp illustrates the great philosophical divide between operators of animal exhibits and members of animal rights organizations, who believe all captive exotic animals, especially primates, should be in sanctuaries which provide the animals with a habitat with as little human interference as possible.

“Yes, they say they’re members of the family. We’ve heard it before,” said Nicole Paquette, director of legal and government affairs for the Animal Protection Institute, who noted that small zoos and animal exhibits generally are profit generating operations designed for entertainment, rather than for education.

“What’s the likelihood of seeing big cats in a Las Vegas show and then saying, ‘I learned about conservation – about cats in the wild and now I’m going to go home and talk about the need to preserve endangered species?’ ” Paquette asked dryly.

While working in Las Vegas, Bobby Berosini was known as someone who considered his primates to be members of the family.

“He absolutely loved the animals,” said Jim Seagrave, vice president of advertising for Coast Casinos.

Seagrave, who was an entertainment and marketing executive at Stardust for many years, said Berosini kept orangutans that were too old to perform as pets, and lived with the animals at his property in Southeast Las Vegas.

“It was very difficult for Bobby,” Seagrave said. “He was from a long line of animals trainers who performed in the European Circus. For him, it was perplexing, because he treated his animals like family.”

But PETA investigators who testified in court that the animals were kept isolated in dark metal boxes – rather than outside in cages or wooded compounds, as in zoos – to intensify their emotional reliance on the animal trainer, probably would ask what it’s like to be a member of the Berosini family.

Whether Bobby and Joan Berosini were somewhat misunderstood and vilified by animals rights activists will probably never be fully known.

But what is known is they’re no longer in the country, and that the place where they made their living has changed.