APNewsBreak: Ringling circus elephants to retire in May

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is getting rid of the elephant acts in its circus routines around two years earlier than the circus had originally planned, the Associated Press reported. It costs about $65,000 yearly to care for each elephant, and the company had to build new structures to house the retiring elephants at the center, located in between Orlando and Tampa.

According to Feld, the animals will be moved to the Center for Elephant Conservation (CEC), a facility in Florida owned by Ringling where they will be used in a breeding program, and studied to benefit cancer research. Part of the Queens Midtown Tunnel would be shut down so the elephants could walk through to make their way to Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Since then, the company’s dedicated staff has made the necessary plans and preparations to move the elephants to the Center for Elephant Conservation much sooner than anticipated.

The news comes nearly a year after Feld Entertainment announced the elephants would be phased out and eventually retired by 2018. Fighting legislation in each jurisdiction is expensive, he said. “This transition will also allow us to fully focus on the role our elephants have in the pioneering pediatric cancer research project with Dr. Schiffman”.

Ringling Brothers has been repeatedly criticized, picketed and even sued by several animal rights groups for its treatments of the elephants. That’s a paradox known among scientists, and now researchers think they may have an explanation – one they say might someday lead to new ways to protect people from cancer.

The American public is now widely aware that elephants are incredibly intelligent creatures and the procedures employed in order to “train” an elephant to perform in the way the circus requires is nearly always abusive and damaging to the mental health of the animal.

While the organization has previously held the opinion that elephants are vital to the success of a circus, the superstar Cirque Du Soleil has proven this idea to be false.

“There’s so much to be learned from their DNA”, Feld said. P.T. Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882.