The company accelerated the retirement plan after concluding its Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida had enough barn space, water and waste disposal capacity to hold the 11 elephants still on tour, spokesman Stephen Payne said.
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Alana Feld, Ringling’s executive vice president and show producer, said the remaining Asian elephants still performing will join 29 others on the property now; two others are on breeding loans to zoos. After their final performances on May 1, in Wilkes Barre, Pa., and Providence, R.I., the elephants will live out their lives at Ringling’s Center for Elephant Conservation (CEC), on 200 remote acres not far from Disney World. With the ban, circus officials said it had become “impractical” to tour.
Aria said a scientist in Utah also plants on studying the animals’ blood samples to see if he can unlock a key to pediatric cancer; elephants have proven resistant to the disease.
Parent company Feld Entertainment had originally said that the elephants, a centerpiece of the 145-year-old traveling show, would not be gone by 2018. “It’s historical for Ringing Brothers”, said Janice Aria, Director of Animal Stewardship for Ringling Bros.
Kenneth Feld, Chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment, called the decision to retire the elephants “the most significant change we have made since we founded the Ringling Bros”.
The show elephants are retiring this summer.
The circus will continue to use other animals, though, including horses, dogs, and tigers. In total, there will be 42 elephants at the center.
The use and treatment of the elephants used as part of Ringling Bros. Many local governments in the 115 cities the circus visits each year have recently passed laws created to protect elephants or remove exotic animals from city-owned facilities. Despite their size, an elephant’s cancer mortality rate is only 4.8 percent compared to 11-25 percent in humans.
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Animal rights groups have scored a major victory against the Greatest Show On Earth, but that isn’t stopping the protests.
