Last week, Ringling Brothers Circus announced their upcoming permanent closure, set for May 2017. Ringling Bros. has claimed to be the “Greatest Show on Earth” for the past 146 years, but not all creatures great and small would agree. The phasing out of one of the most popular and long-running circus acts has received massive applause from animal activists.
Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment and producer of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey®, published a statement on the Ringling Bros. website explaining that “Ringling Bros. ticket sales have been declining, but following the transition of the elephants off the road, we saw an even more dramatic drop. This, coupled with high operating costs, made the circus an unsustainable business for the company.”
In January 2016, Ringling Bros. announced the retirement of elephant acts following decades of protest by animal rights activists fueled by uncertainty regarding the care and handling procedures implemented by the circus. According to PETA’s Ringling Factsheet, the Ringling Bros. Circus received over 150 citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) between 1990 and 2016. Failure to follow federal standards outlined in the Animal Welfare Act resulted in countless hefty fines of up to $270,000 due to non-compliances.
Ultimately, it appears that the circus’ major financial hit stemmed from declining ticket sales. Such a crippling loss suggests that animal welfare enthusiasts have been heard and their efforts noticed.
Ringling Bros. Circus has not yet announced details regarding the retirement of the animals under their care. The elephants that retired last year now reside at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation (CEC) near Orlando, Florida. The quality of the “retirement” is cause for concern considering the elephants are still under Ringling Bros. sponsored care. The CEC is one of the smallest elephant sanctuaries in the U.S. with only 200 acres allotted to more than 30 elephants. The CEC is not open to the public and places heavy emphasis on breeding their elephants in captivity as well as utilizing them as subjects for cancer research. The lifestyle may be a step-up from concrete floors and bull-hooks but it hardly grants the freedom that the endangered Asian elephant’s deserve.
While the news of the Ringling Bros. Circus’ closure is promising, the 50+ animals under their care still face undetermined fates, so hold your applause. Urging Feld Entertainment to send the animals to accredited sanctuaries is essential to assure these wild animals live the remainder of their lives free of exploitation. Now that’s a grand finale.