Circus elephants to retire early

“It’s time to finally end the era of wild animal acts in circuses, and the accelerated timeline for Ringling’s retirement of its elephant acts is a hopeful sign for us all”. The pachyderms will soon join the 29 other elephants already retired at the Ringling Bros.

The iconic American circus, famous for its elephants and high-flying acts, first vowed to remove the animals from its traveling circus last March amid public concern about animal mistreatment. Initially, the circus elephants were to continue touring until 2018. Eleven elephants that are now made to tour the country and perform tricks for people will be retired, bringing the herd at the center to 42.

While at the conservation, the elephants will be used as part of cancer research.

On Monday, Ringling Brothers Circus and Feld Entertainment announced that it will be ending all traveling elephant shows in May. Two more are on so-called “breeding loans” to zoos. However, while planning for 2018 the company realized they could retire the giant animals sooner than originally thought. Ringling’s director of animal stewardship Janice Aria said the end of elephant shows is bittersweet. 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.

Feld owns the largest herd of Asian elephants in North America, and it costs about $65,000 yearly to care for each elephant, according to The Associated Press.

Last year, Los Angeles and Oakland banned the use of bullhooks by handlers.

Ringling’s next round of shows will begin in July – without the trumpeters.

“That’s a very creative organization and [has] lots of attractions beyond elephants”, Robertson said, “I’m sure they’ll come up with dynamic things to fill in the gaps”. Scientists have discovered a cancer-suppressing gene in elephants that may one day lead to better treatments in humans, The Tampa Tribune reported.