Erin McElhone: Ringling Bros. Circus Holds Final Shows Featuring Elephants

For the Greatest Show on Earth, there is no longer an elephant in the room. The 145-year-old Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus held its last show featuring elephants Sunday night, in a move that's being applauded by animal rights activists. Ringling announced its plan last spring, saying it is sending all its Asian elephants to live on the company's Florida nature reserve. The original plan called for phasing out elephants' role in the circus by 2018. But in January, Ringling's parent company, Feld Entertainment, said it was moving up the timetable. The decision came after years of growing public concern for the elephants' well-being, with activists criticizing Ringling for forcing intelligent animals that, in the wild, sustain complex social relationships, to live in captivity and isolation. News that Ringling would stop bringing elephants from city to city on its circus tours landed like a bombshell last year, with Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle saying that for Feld, which had long resisted calls to stop using elephants in its shows, to agree with activists was "almost like the [fall of] the Berlin Wall within the animal welfare [community]."  A total of 11 elephants took part in their last shows on Sunday, in circuses at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania and Providence, Rhode Island The elephants will now join about 30 others at the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation, a 200-acre facility.

I am glad to see these animals treated better. I hope this is a step in the correct direction to stop all animal shows, including dog and cat shows. Why give the circus jobs to animals when we could be providing more opportunities for careers in this niche.

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