Now officially retired, the elephants join 30 others at the Ringling Bros.
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Ringings final 11 performing elephants took the stage in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island on Sunday for the last time, ending 145 years of circus tradition by “The Greatest Show On Earth”.
At the show in Rhode Island, ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson bid farewell on behalf of his six elephants, describing it as an emotional time.
Last spring, the company announced its plan to retire the animals to a nature preserve in 2018 however, due to growing public concern and outrage regarding the treatment of the elephants, Ringling Bros. chose to retire the elephants sooner than planned.
The circus has faced a torrent of criticism from animal rights groups, including widely circulated videos from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that show a male handler hitting elephants with a sharp, pointed stick, known as an ankus, before a performance. This was after years of pressure from animal rights groups.
During Sunday’s show, the elephants paraded into the stage as they had for years, linked to each other trunk-to-tail.
Its herd of 40 Asian elephants, the largest in North America, will continue a breeding programme and be used in a pediatric cancer research project.
Earlier, the crowd watched as the elephants performed an act that had them dancing, balancing on each others’ backs, sitting on their hind legs and pretending to sleep.
Some animal rights activists have criticised the facility, describing it as little more than a breeding centre, with inadequate space for the elephants. Some places have also enacted laws banning the bullhook, the controversial device used to train the elephants.
Ringling is planning to move their elephants to Florida conservation center by 2018.
Circus pioneer Hachaliah Bailey bought an African elephant, Old Bet, in 1808, said to be the first elephant to perform in the US.
Not all animal acts have ended for this circus.
It’s hard to put a number on the remaining circuses that use elephants, Pacelle said.
In a statement, the Humane Society said, elephants in circuses are often “denied the stimulation and social relationships they’d experience in the wild”. Cirque du Soleil and theme parks such as Disney developed new shows for customers, without the use of live animals.
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National Geographic toured the facility past year and described Ringling’s setup as “flat and treeless” where elephants may be “penned” for a day and “tethered with an ankle chain at night” to prevent them from stealing one another’s meals. A researcher at the University of Utah is working with Ringling to study the elephants’ blood cells.
