(Las Vegas KTNV) In the circus, you see gentle giants donning funny outfits and performing tricks on tiny tubs.

It's anything but an elephant's natural environment.

"Should the elephants get out there and perform these tricks every day for the public so you (Ringling Bros.) can make pocket money? Or should it be that the elephants don't have to do this anymore?" asks Tom Rider, a former Ringling employee and plaintiff in the federal lawsuit against the circus.

The lawsuit accuses the circus of violating the Endangered Species Act by forcefully using bull hooks to control their endangered Asian elephants, and chaining them for most of the day and night both at circus sites and on trains used to get them from one show to the next.

Rider, who used to work with the Ringling elephants, says, "We never took the elephants off the train. We'd stop at a water stop, water the elephants, they'd be on there for days. This is what we're trying to stop with the lawsuit."

The chaining starts when the elephants are just babies.

"People don't realize this but some of the babies might be tied up by four legs for two days, one of them was tied up for four months by four legs. What part of humane is that?" Rider asks.

Court transcripts from the testimony of Ringling's chief elephant handler confirms that the two year old elephant Rider is referencing was only free from her chains for about forty minutes a day when she was being trained.

Another baby was euthanized a day after breaking both front legs during training on a tub. At the time, trainers had a rope tied around his trunk.

The training and chaining process is calling "breaking" the elephant's spirit, which court records show can start at birth.

"You've got this elephant giving birth and at the same time a guy is up there hooking it with a bullhook, it's chained by three legs and then the baby's taken away immediately," Rider says, referring to a video entered into the court record.

Ringling admits most babies are taken from their mothers while they're still nursing, tied up and kept restrained until they're submissive to the bullhook.

"The bullhook has been used on them in an improper way for years," Rider says.

Ringling wouldn't talk to us for this story.

But in 2007, before the case went to trial, circus trainer Carrie Coleman told Contact 13, "Actually, we use it (the bullhook) because their skin is very thick and tough and in order for them to actually feel the use of it.  We don't use it in any way that's unacceptable."

But that's not what came out in trial. In another video introduced in court, Ringling admitted the handler was abusive.

Rider recalls seeing "gashes behind the ears where I could stick my little finger to the first joint in there and just run it down these big cuts down the back where they take the bullhook and try to lay them down and cut them down the back. Always jabbing them under the chin and behind the legs."

Veterinary records show many elephants have leg and foot problems including chronic lameness likely due to trauma, cracks and swelling of the toes and feet, even tuberculosis.

The records show animals are uncomfortable during the hind leg stands they're forced to perform, and some are even anorexic.

"Ringling has been falsifying the facts for years... and has been saying one thing and doing another," Rider says.

Ringling parent company Feld Entertainment issued a statement before the trial saying "animal special interest groups are distorting the facts by making false allegations about the treatment of Ringling Bros. elephants... Feld Entertainment will show during the trial that its elephants are healthy, alert, and thriving."

It goes on to say "Ringling Bros. has never been found in violation of the Animal Welfare Act."

But documents from the trial show Ringling has, in fact, been fined $20,000 for violations of that Act.

They've also been written up for mischaracterizing an elephant's health to the USDA, and been cited for the death of a lion during transport.

"It's time for the public to step in and just go no, that's it, we're done. We're not going to go to your circus anymore. You want a circus act here you go to Circus Circus or Cirque du Soleil is up and down the strip.  There you go, go see those guys," Rider suggests.

The federal judge has recently asked for more information from both sides in the case.

He could make a decision as early as next month.