The title I had intended to use was taken, and thus I realize I have been doing this for far too long:
"Ringling Bros. says it will retire elephant acts by 2018" by Tamara Lush, Associated Press March 06, 2015
POLK CITY, Fla. — The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus says the ‘‘Greatest Show on Earth’’ will go on without elephants.
Animal rights groups took credit for generating the public concern that prompted the company to announce its pachyderm retirement plan on Thursday. But Ringling Bros.’ owners described it as the bittersweet result of years of internal family discussions.
‘‘It was a decision 145 years in the making,’’ said Juliette Feld, referring to P.T. Barnum’s introduction of animals to his ‘‘traveling menagerie’’ in 1870. Elephants have symbolized this circus since Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882.
Kenneth Feld — whose father bought the circus in 1967 and who now runs Feld Enterprises Inc. with his three daughters — insisted that animal rights activists weren’t responsible.
‘‘We’re not reacting to our critics; we’re creating the greatest resource for the preservation of the Asian elephant,’’ Kenneth Feld told the Associated Press as he broke the news that the last 13 performing elephants will retire by 2018, joining 29 other pachyderms at the company’s 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida.
But Feld acknowledged that because so many cities and counties have passed ‘‘anti-circus’’ and “anti-elephant’’ ordinances, it’s difficult to organize tours of three traveling circuses to 115 cities each year. Fighting legislation in each jurisdiction is expensive, he said.
‘‘All of the resources used to fight these things can be put toward the elephants,’’ Feld said.
Los Angeles prohibited the use of bull-hooks by elephant trainers and handlers last April. Oakland, Calif., did likewise in December, banning the devices used to keep elephants in control. Last month, the city of Asheville, N.C., nixed wild or exotic animals from performing in the municipally owned, 7,600-seat US Cellular Center.
‘‘There’s been somewhat of a mood shift among our consumers,’’ said Alana Feld, the company’s executive vice president. ‘‘A lot of people aren’t comfortable with us touring with our elephants.’’
Ingrid E. Newkirk, the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said her group made that happen.
‘‘For 35 years PETA has protested Ringling Bros.’ cruelty to elephants,’’ she wrote in a statement. ‘‘We know extreme abuse to these majestic animals occurs every single day, so if Ringling is really telling the truth about ending this horror, it will be a day to pop the champagne corks and rejoice. . . . If the decision is serious, then the circus needs to do it NOW.’’
Carol Bradley, author of the book ‘‘Last Chain on Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top,’’ which is about a non-Ringling circus elephant, said she believes the Feld family ‘‘realized it was a losing PR battle.’’
‘‘This is an enormous, earth-moving decision,’’ she said. ‘‘When I heard the news, my jaw hit the floor. I never thought they’d change their minds about this.’’
Bradley wondered if the Feld family’s decision had anything to do with the fallout over ‘‘Blackfish,’’ a documentary exploring why the orca Tilikum killed SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010.
The documentary argues that killer whales in captivity become more aggressive to humans and each other. Since it aired, several entertainers pulled out of performances at SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. parks, and Southwest Airlines ended its marketing partnership.
Ringling also has been targeted by activists who say forcing animals to perform is cruel and unnecessary.
In 2014, Feld Entertainment won $25.2 million in settlements from groups including the Humane Society of the United States, ending a 14-year legal battle over allegations that circus employees mistreated elephants.
The initial lawsuit was filed by a former Ringling barn helper who accepted at least $190,000 from animal rights groups. The judge called him ‘‘essentially a paid plaintiff’’ who lacked credibility and standing to sue, and rejected the abuse claims.
Kenneth Feld testified about the elephants’ importance to the show during that 2009 trial.
Asked by a lawyer whether the show would be the same without elephants, Feld replied, ‘‘No, it wouldn’t.’’
Asked again this week, Feld said, ‘‘Things have changed.’’
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That's going to ruin all the fun of going to the circus.
"Ringling’s elephant move is a start" by The Editorial Board March 06, 2015
The stunning announcement
this week from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus — that it
will drop elephants entirely from its traveling show — is terrific news
for a majestic species of animal. It’s also a triumph of public
awareness.
As Ringling’s parent company, Feld Entertainment,
tacitly acknowledged this week, public pressure against the use of
elephants in circus shows has been mounting for years. Some stems from a
growing scientific awareness of elephants’ intelligence
and social nature. Some comes from the work of animal-rights activists,
who have confronted circus audiences with shocking evidence of elephant
mistreatment. That, in turn, has decreased demand for circus tickets
and increased pressure to regulate, or outright ban, the cruellest
training practices.
For years, Feld Entertainment tried to fight that pressure with a public relations effort of its own, promoting a 200-acre “Center for Elephant Conservation” in Florida, where about 40 elephants now live, and the 13 elephants now traveling in Ringling’s show will eventually retire.
But evidence of cruelty has overwhelmed that gloss. In 2009, a former Ringling’s animal trainer — moved on his deathbed to act — sent photos to the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They showed baby elephants yanked away from their mothers, elephants shackled in barns with all four legs spread and restrained, and the widespread use of bullhooks and electric prods to force the animals into submission. PETA circulated the photos widely and displayed them, poster-sized, outside of Ringling shows. Local activist groups joined the cause, and lobbied public officials. Last December, Oakland, Calif., joined several other cities, including Los Angeles, Palm Beach, and Miami Beach, in banning the use of bullhooks, the sharp-hooked tools that Ringling’s elephant trainers regularly use.
This became, in effect, a practical barrier to circus operations. Without bullhooks, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said, “the simple fact is they can’t control them. They’ve got massive, many-tonned, intelligent animals who don’t want to stand on their heads or hold each other’s tails when they walk somewhere.”
Ringling’s announcement is a start, but it isn’t fully satisfying. As Newkirk notes, Ringling hasn’t promised to end the use of elephants until 2018; if the practice is wrong, it should end now. And Ringling and other circuses shouldn’t stop with elephants. It’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s not necessary to conscript wild animals into the nomadic, confined circus life. Plenty of smaller circuses — including the popular Big Apple Circus that occupies City Hall Plaza each spring — have proven that audiences are duly entertained without elephants, tigers, or bears. Cirque du Soleil does hearty business with the exploits of consenting human beings. Standards of entertainment change. And, fortunately for elephants, public pressure works.
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Maybe the elephant could file her own suit.
I wonder if Feld operates any other circuses.
As I worked my way through this post and considered the source that brought me it, my thoughts progressed to why I was driven down this side road of concern for elephants when the meat industry slaughters a Holocaust™ of animals for food. Or that a billion birds die each year at the expense of the gleaming cities constructed by the elite cla$$ and promoted by their pre$$. Why is the issue always the elephant, the whale, the polar bear, etc, etc? Species go extinct every day, and then it occurred to me. There are other intere$ts involved in the production of meat that go beyond the animal, including grain and hormone-providing pharmaceutical companies. I $uppo$e there are certain places you don't go in the propaganda pre$$.
That is not to approve of the mistreatment of animals in circuses in any way shape, or form. In fact, it leads me to my second point. Maybe the time has come, now, in the 21st-century, to let things like circuses and zoos go extinct.
Someday this blog will become extinct; I just hope the human race is not driven there first by the psychopaths running this planet and their agenda-pu$hing ma$$ media mouthpieces.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Big Apple Circus, facing a $100,000 bill from the City of Boston that includes overdue rent and other costs, set up a payment plan this month so that its troupe of clowns and acrobats could twirl once more on City Hall Plaza. Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s administration required the circus to start making payments before Big Apple could set up for this year’s seven-week run, which is scheduled to begin March 24. Will Maitland Weiss, Big Apple’s interim executive director, declined to discuss the circus’s back rent and referred specific questions to the city."
The snow won't be gone yet, and those behind the abuse of animals go by the name Feld and Weiss, huh? Need I even comment, and who cares about the rest of that sh....?
