Ringling Bros. to retire all circus elephants in May

Ringling Brothers, America’s best-known circus, announced Monday it will relocate all of its elephants to a conservation center in Florida by May, advancing the retirement date for the giant pachyderms by more than a year. “They’ll be joining the rest of the herd”, Alana Feld, executive vice president and show producer for Ringling, says. In addition to those still touring, there are 29 elephants on the property now, and two additional animals are on breeding loans to zoos, Feld said. “The challenge is on us to provide the kind of stimulation and social grouping that these elephants have on the herds that they’re with now”.

The Ringling Bros. made the decision to retire its elephants early primarily due to the passage of “anti-circus” and elephant-related ordinances by state and local governments around the world. But today Feld announced that the remaining elephants traveling in its shows will join the other retired elephants living at the sanctuary this May. The Polk City, Florida, center encompasses about 200 acres. CEO Kenneth Feld told me last spring, “It’s not like moving a bowl of goldfish”.

In both Oakland and Los Angeles, the city has barred the use of bullhooks by elephant trainers. The city of Asheville, North Carolina, also banned the presence of performing elephants in its 7,600-seat US Cellular Center. The company initially planned to get its Asian elephants off the road by 2018. “We took a look at the social groupings as they exist now because we totally want to create the same environment here for them”, center representative Janice Aria said. Ringling Bros. went as far as to hire a private investigator to secretly film LCA’s President; but the investigator switched sides, and now openly acknowledges Ringling Bros.’ cruelty to elephants, as seen in the video here. She said the retired elephants at the CEC will also be part of cancer research. But despite that legal success, the retirement of the elephants represents a bowing to the wishes of an American public more concerned about the care of animals than generations before.