“There they will join the rest of the Ringling Brothers’ herd of Asian elephants, for a total of 42 at the conservation center”.
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Feld Entertainment, which manages the circus, told the Associated Press the company is “looking at new ways of doing things”.
It costs about $65,000 yearly to care for each elephant, [Feld VP Alana Feld] said, and the company had to build new structures to house the retiring elephants at the center, located between Orlando and Tampa. The elephants will appear at the Barclays Center next month. In 2014, Feld Entertainment won a multi-million settlement against a collection of animal-rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, over unproven allegations that the circus was mistreating elephants. Today our sources say that the reason for the early end on the elephant shows is that Disney is looking to push through with the acquisition later this year. While public pressure has been mounting for circuses to end their animal acts, Ringling Bros. had been one of the biggest defenders of this kind of archaic animal exploitation. Previously, the company announced that they will be ending the shows in 2018.
Aria said the decision came down to answering logistical questions: Is there enough space at the the 200-acre conservation facility to accommodate the additional animals?
The company has no plans to retire any of its other performing animal acts, including tigers, lions, leopards, horses, camels, dogs, and kangaroos, which Payne terms “part of the 145-year history” of Ringling Bros.
Be free, elephants. Florida is nice this time of year.
“But the growing pattern of anti-circus legislation in places like Los Angeles made it impossible for us to bring the circus to town”, Payne said.
Elephants don’t get cancer as frequently as humans do, even though their bodies contain many more cells that could potentially become malignant.
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“Rather than fight city hall, we chose to take those resources and use them for conservation of the species”, he said in a telephone interview.
