The final performance for elephants at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus was on Sunday night.
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After decades of pressure from animal rights activists, the final 11 elephants still touring with Ringling Bros performed for the last time at a circus in Rhode Island.
Circus leaders are sending the elephants to a conservation center in Florida. Elephants have far fewer incidents of cancer, so researchers are looking for clues in the blood samples of Ringling elephants that could change how cancer is treated in pediatric patients.
After more than one hundred years in business, the world’s most famous elephant show has finally reached its end.
“Taking elephants out of the shows is only the first step”, said Rachel Mathews, PETA Foundation Capital Animal Law Enforcement counsel.
There are at least a dozen other circuses still using elephants in the U.S. according to the Humane Society, but none are as big as Ringling Bros.
How does the decision to retire elephants from the Ringling brothers Circus affect other acts under the big top across the country.
In 2014, the company snagged a public relations victory when several animal rights groups, including the Human Society of the United States, were ordered to pay $16 million to settle unproven allegations that the circus was mistreating elephants.
“Animal rights groups are going to say what animal rights groups are going to say”, Payne said. But none tour as widely or are as well-known as Ringling Bros.
Elephants have been used in the circus in America for more than 200 years.
Five elephants also performed earlier on Sunday in a Ringling Bros show in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
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SeaWorld Entertainment Inc is stopping its killer whale shows at its amusement parks, halting the breeding of orcas in captivity as of last month and replacing the extravaganzas with what it terms educational encounters by 2019. “Rather than sending them to a sanctuary, the elephants will be held at the company’s Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida, long known for chaining and keeping elephants on concrete and for using bullhooks and electric prods”. Sunday’s show included horses, lions, tigers, dogs, pigs and other animals. The company will integrate new technology, including video projection mapping, to create a “good vs. evil” performance.
