Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 years | Hacker News Reader

Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 years

daytondailynews.com

196 pointsjdoliner189 comments

>when the elephants left, there was a "dramatic drop" in ticket sales. Paradoxically, while many said they didn't want big animals to perform in circuses, many others refused to attend a circus without them.

This isn't paradoxical. The people protesting the circus are obviously not the same people buying tickets to the circus.

They seriously half assed it. They only dropped elephants, and pretty suddenly at that.... But left "lions, tigers, camels, donkeys, alpacas, kangaroos and llamas." Not nearly enough to keep the animal welfare people happy but just enough to annoy the ticket buyers. People who want to see tigers jump through flaming hoops also want to see elephants "perform." 99.9% of the people who object to elephants being in circuses are then going to object to other wild animals being in circuses. Removing elephants but leaving lions doesn't please them and it doesn't even make sense.

By getting rid of one without the other they made exactly nobody happy and signed their own death certificate. How the hell did nobody see this?

I guess it was a knee jerk reaction?

They might have used the opportunity to have reimagined themselves as a modern circus without animals... Maybe, if they reformatted themselves and modernized. But I think their identity may have been too interwoven with animals to be able to move forward.

But the question posed remains, would people bring their kids to this kind of show without the allure of exotic animals? Probably. But maybe not under the Ringling Bros name.

Maybe the writing was on the wall for years and the elephants were the last nail in the coffin. I, personally, feel that Ringling Bros always was kind of still an outdated sideshow act. Sorry, Ringling, you stayed in the wrong century.

I haven't been to any circus show for ages. I don't think it would have changed at all when they would have reinvented themselfs without animals.

You see so much stuff online already.

The only relevant circus are already those with international acts. Casting globally for a tour with 1-4 different shows.

Modern circuses are a thing and are popular. Cirque de Soleil being the biggest example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_circus

It's a different sort of show.

Cirques du soleil is the reinvention of the circus (yes they do have a travelling tent). It's a great lesson for us to see how a stale industry can be transformed.

> But it seemingly was no match for Pokemon Go and a generation of kids who desire familiar brands and YouTube celebrities.

I hate how stuff is just thrown into articles like this as if it's fact. The circus was passé when I was a kid 30 years ago.

I could throw out unsubstantiated garbage like this as well and claim that kids today are actually much more understanding of animal welfare and would rather see animals in their natural habit on Youtube than see them perform tricks on a stage.

Thank you! I totally agree! I found this too be odd for the same reason. And I think you are absolutely right. I never thought about it before but passé is extremely accurate.

I remember, I went to the Ringling Bros circus, once, as a child [almost] 30 year ago. Before the internet, before [ubiquitous] computers, before cellphones, before iPads, before YouTube, before pokemom [even the card games], and even before Tamagotchis. I had an very small world at that time, I had the library and I had tv. I was also very easily entertained as a result.

I was excited because "circus" and you hear a lot about "circus" on TV and pop culture. Sounded exciting because of media.

I remember it as just odd. The reason why it is so memorable is because it was so odd.

First there were the protesters, I couldn't even begin to understand at that time why they were protesting but the idea that some people didn't approve of this didn't sit very well with me. Before my trip to the circus I've never seen any protesters ever in my life.

Then the show. It was... OK. Animals didn't impress me, they were more interesting on TV and in books than performing. Seemed unnatural and almost distracting and not at all impressive. I don't really remember the other performances because they seemed to REALLY want to showcase the animals.

I kinda felt, even as young as I was, that this was just outdated. Even though I wasn't able to articulate it or even understand it then. My mom said she felt the same way too, "well I always wanted to to the circus, I did, now I won't go again." Seem like they were cruzing on nostalgia for half a century.

It's never a good sign when a kid goes in for entertainment and comes out confused.

Seems like they were cruzing on nostalgia for half a century.

"I could... claim that kids today are actually much more understanding of animal welfare and would rather see animals in their natural habit on Youtube than see them perform tricks on a stage." - I think this is probably more accurate. :) I [totally unscientifically] think that most humans enjoy watching big cats with catnip on YouTube more than big cats being coaxed to jump through a fire hoop. (At least I do...)

My experience was 10 or 15 years before yours (I'm older), also as a little child. A lion put a paw in the bars and proceeded to spray a dozen people in the first rows.

So I didn't come back to "circus" until Cirque du Soleil came to Madrid. That's obviously another meaning of "circus".

Cirque du Soleil was designed as a circus without animals. Notwithstanding the points others have made about animal rights and such, it's pretty clear that they have flourished as Ringling has declined. At the end of the day, just because something has been around for a long time is not justification of its existence. All organizations need to adapt to changing circumstances.

They do really risky acrobatics and I think have had some human deaths.

I agree. I went to a circus once, as a child, in 1999. I found it to be a mostly disturbing and garish experience featuring tired and exploited performers, humans as well as animals.

I felt the same way a decade earlier. While it's not quite on par with the disgust I feel about something like bull-fighting, cock-fighting, dog-racing, horse racing, etc. I've always been uncomfortable with animals being forced to perform in a context like the circus (or Seaworld).

I think (hope) the leading edge of human ethics is moving toward no longer treating animals as resources to be exploited, at least not merely for entertainment. Most people still look the other way when it comes to animal agriculture, or are even enthusiastic about it, but I think even that's likely to shift with time, as well.

Back at the beginning of of 2016 my circle of friends in their 30's was excitedly forwarding each other links to a 50% off Groupon [1] for this circus. We all have small kids, ages 4-10 and probably never considered the circus before - I don't think most of us went as kids. The excitement died pretty quickly after someone found the PETA website with videos of the animals being abused [2] and that was the end of that.

[1] https://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-ringling-bros-and-barnum-ba...

[2] http://www.ringlingbeatsanimals.com/

Personally, aside from something passive like a zoo, I don't care for anything that relies on animal performance for entertainment. That includes dog racing, horse racing, and things like circuses and even Seaworld.

I know many people don't care but it bothers me.

Zoos are inhumane for many animals in my personal opinion. Many animals should be ranging a territory in the wild, not confined to a tiny plot of land to be gawked at.

I don't find the 'conservation' excuse all that acceptable either. What if the millions spent on Zoos were instead spent to conserve the native territories of the animals and to improve the lives of the people who live near them so they won't resort to poaching or habitat destruction.

> or habitat destruction

Doesn't this come mostly from clearing land for agriculture?

Yes, some animals get stressed out living in zoos. That being said, it is probably the least stressful way that people can appreciate animals in real life. There is some value in bringing people face to face with animals, I think it reconnects us with the basis of our humanity, and leads us to treat animals better overall. Does the moral math work out in the end? I don't know, but it isn't a one sided issue.

This is my thinking as well. Zoos are kind of a necessary evil so we don't completely concrete all jungles, etc.

Humans are horrible caretakers of this planet.

Some zoos are actually centers of research and teaching.

http://www.omahazoo.com/conservation/

>What if the millions spent on Zoos were instead spent to conserve the native territories

A lot of zoos are funded 100% off ticket sales. How do you generate those millions of dollars without some business model supporting it?

True, but - there wouldn't be any millions if these (poor imho) animals weren't confined in small places.

Planet 1: "Hey there, long time no see, how are you doing? :-)"

Planet 2: "not too good lately... :-( I got infected by humans..."

This is a funny joke.... But ultimately nonsense. Any other planets with any life?

At best, it is looking like most life dies off. Conway's game is incredibly fitting in that.

I dont know where this idea comes from that animals in the wild are happy. Most live short brutal lives. Living in a zoo, free from predators, plenty of food, and veterinary care when they are sick. Its sort of like an animal utopia.

> Living in a zoo, free from predators, plenty of food, and veterinary care when they are sick. Its sort of like an animal utopia.

Replace "zoo" with "modern society", and vets with hospitals. Sounds pretty similar to what a lot of people strive for.

The common argument against that comparison is animals don't have a choice in the matter, while we are free to flee.

NFL Football and boxing are perhaps more inhuman than those activities. You should add sports that fry the participant's brains to the list of things to not support

I don't think they're more imhumane, simply because people get to choose whether or not to participate in them, unlike the animals. And in fact now that we have this information, support for football is starting to decline at the high school level at least. Not by much yet but it could be a trend.

Many children start playing football because of peer pressure and parental pressure. It's not as much of simple choice as you think.

If the bar was "the kid could technically decide not to", then we would allow advertising cigarettes to children.

Nobody's going into the NFL because of peer pressure.

Is this a joke?

I agree that some people, especially in the highschool level, will play football because of peer pressure.

Who do you believe is putting in the work required to play football professionally, but doing it purely out of peer pressure?

I view the pool of people that get into it professionally as including the set that got into it at the school level.

That is, I viewed it as two different points. I will agree that there is unlikely anyone staying in professional football from the peer pressure. However, that they got into football at all is probably attributable to that.

So, you're saying that nobody is going into the NFL because of peer pressure?

Yeah, the population definitely doesn't idolize NFL players and provide so much viewership that they get millions of dollars annually just to play.

Someone with no job prospects is offered millions of dollars to cause himself brain damage. You think you can make the right decision?

No one is forced to play football or box.

Nice to think that. Not really true. Meet some college football players sometime. Most could have at best got a job as a janitor.

Not even comparable.

First, people make these choices voluntarily and are not in servitude.

Secondly, even as science is revealing the horror of the consequences, a lot of these people still choose to do it.

For example when you tell star college football players the NFL has a 40% chance of brain damage, most will still go. It's hard for me to understand, but the fame, fortune, glory, adulation some believe is a fair trade off.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/1...

It's almost as if it's like a drug or gambling when the rational choice is not what people make.

Way ahead of you on that one.

Zoos really differ in their treatment of animals too btw.

There's no videos of them beating animals in that link.

I haven't seen that video but the one circus with animals that I've been to, I felt pretty uncomfortable watching the animals perform, because the animals seemed so tired and traumatized.

I hope you all don't eat meat, eggs, cheese, or milk. The animals that those come from would love to be treated as well as circus animals.

And do you understand that these animals are absolutely vicious and cruel with each other in the wild? A tiger will start picking at your guts while you're still breathing. A male lion will kill all of the existing cubs of its new mate.

Which, I guess, is ample justification for humans to treat these animals cruelly? Not really following the logic of your argument here. Though I definitely agree with your point about cruelties inherent in the meat and dairy industries.

Not a justification, just highlighting the hypocrisy of happily eating meat while complaining about circus animal treatment.

There are much better, more constructive ways you could frame that message. Ways that are much more likely to be received well.

Just to toss one possibility out, maybe something along the lines of "Hey, that did bother me. Check out this other thing that bothers me about X farming."

None of them bother me actually.

You don't think it likely that a significant proportion of the loudest opponents are also vegetarians?

I love people who make silly counter arguments. Watched a hunter challenge someone protesting their hunt: "Do you wear leather?"

"I'm a vegetarian" was the entirely predictable response.

(Actually, I now remember it was the other way around. "Do you wear leather" was the next step after asking the protester whether he ate meat and getting the vegetarian answer. As if a vegetarian would go out of his way to avoid meat, protest hunts, and still not be aware where leather came from.)

I suppose the key insight is this: it's human nature to want those who disagree with us to turn out to be hypocrites. Much easier than dealing with the possibility that our moral code is broken.

Identifying hypocrisy is not just about dismissing opponents, it's about getting them to reconsider their views, which are possibly not well-founded and contradictory.

Striving for ethical and compassionate behavior toward animals need not be and should not be an all or nothing prospect. For example, a vegetarian who wears leather may very well cause less harm to animals than an omnivore who wears leather.

Restricting one's consumption to vegetables can promote animal welfare despite engaging in other practices that harm animals.

Demoralizing people who strive to promote animal welfare by pointing out their contradictory behavior is less desirable, to my mind, than encouraging people to do as much as they can.

Why not reconsider your own views and encourage such people to promote animal welfare in all the ways they could rather than demoralizing them to give up altogether?

EDIT: spelling, rewrite final sentence, formatting.

I don't think you get me. I'm not concerned about animal welfare and I don't think other people should be either. It is all the way down on my list of concerns, right below the least important human concern.

That's unfortunate on many levels.

Actually, I do think I get you.

I'm asking you to reconsider your position. I understand you're unlikely to do so.

One thing you should consider is the very strong possibility that "the least important human concern" is not distinct from what you consider to be "animal welfare".

Living beings on this planet are probably deeply intertwined and interdependent in ways we poorly understand. For one example, take the growing research around gut flora and microbiomes.

As individual beings, we are crucially dependent on bacteria that, in fact, extend the boundaries of what we consider to be our bodies far beyond what we have understood to be the case for millennia.

Separating the human condition from "animal welfare" is a grave mistake. For your own good, I think you should reconsider your position regarding the care of non-human organisms.

You're conflating two totally separate things. The treatment of circus and farm animals is completely unrelated to supporting biodiversity.

The thread starts with the treatment of circus animals, but we (your digression) moved quite a bit beyond that with vegetarianism and leather.

"circus and farm animals"

>As if a vegetarian would go out of his way to avoid meat, protest hunts, and still not be aware where leather came from.

You'd be surprised.

> And do you understand that these animals are absolutely vicious and cruel with each other in the wild?

Human society is built on not behaving like animals to each other. Sounds like a good idea to extend this to other sentient beings.

I do eat meat and i do see the point in eating less/no meat. But eating meat affects my daily live a 1000x more than a circus show i'm normally not watching.

Besides that, i also think it is a different thing: You do have to eat, we are eating meet for 10000 years and we need it much more than watching a circus show. Also killing an animal quick and fast is also a different thing than dominating an animal for a show.

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes." -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

"A healthy vegan diet can meet all your nutrient needs at any stage of life including when you are pregnant, breastfeeding or for older adults." -- http://www.dietitians.ca/Your-Health/Nutrition-A-Z/Vegetaria...

No, you don't need meat; You want it.

It's also very difficult to have a "well-planned" vegetarian or vegan diet, especially for children. The chance that you get it right is pretty low.

A vegan diet for children is borderline child abuse in my opinion.

In fairness, the chances of most North Americans getting it right are pretty low when you consider the obesity epidemic, lack of physical activity, and all their orbiting ailments.

To your point though, difficult in what respect? I've been doing this since I was 9 and haven't had any issues. The most common concerns I hear are nutritional (protein, iron, calcium, B12) and convenience (restaurants, grocery stores, birthday cakes, etc). But I'm curious as to what your specific concerns are.

I was also a kid 30 years ago, and I definitely went to the circus more than once and in more than one part of the U.S. And there were always a lot of people there.

Even as recently as 10 years ago when living in NYC, the circus would come to town and people were always talking about it being in the area. Adults, mind you. So I don't think there was anything passé about it, at least not as you suggest.

I don't think I saw Ringling Bros. back then but around 30 years ago I saw the Moscow circus when they performed on an American tour during Glasnost. I remember it being very exciting, well worth the watch. For other distractions at the time I had a Commodore 64 and plenty of television. Perhaps there has been a lack of entertaining circuses, but even in the 80s the circus was much different from the version in the 30s. Circuses used to show up almost overnight and pop up hastily. They would promote themselves, make a few bucks, and move on just as quickly. By the 80s they performed mostly in arenas, competing not just for attention but also for performance dates with bigger acts that are cheaper to run.

Couldn't agree more. I was a kid about 15 years ago and I went to circus around that time with a friend's parents. It was extremely boring to me even then (before Youtube and even smartphones). If at any point I'd been offered a chance to go again, even for free, I would have turned it down. I don't consider myself a huge proponent of animal rights (I'm not at all against them it's just not something I think about a lot) but the circus was up there with seaworld for me. It's just sounds excruciatingly boring and I can think of 100 things I'd rather spend my time on.

Yup, it's more likely that the current generation of parents don't see the circus as interesting, because they didn't like it when they were kids. I know it is in my case - I found circuses a dark, smelly and sad experience when I was a kid, I have no interest in dragging my own kids there now.

I hadn't been to a circus since i was a kid, kind of remember having a fun time. Took my kid to one when he was 3. It was the most uncomfortable, depressing thing I've ever paid to see. Glad to see the practice is dying out.

Especially since Circe de Soleil seems to be doing very well. I think circus isn't dead but has moved on. I went to see many circuses in Europe as a child and there one liked best ("Flik Flak") had no animals. Instead they focused on great acrobats and even set up a giant pool for part of their performance. In hindsight they were the circus closest to Circe de Soleil at the time and it worked. So what probably killed Ringling isn't Pokemon Go, but better circus.

Step right up to one of the many amazing animal-free circuses. Cirque du Soleil in particular puts on an incredible show.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/amazing-anima...

Queue complaints about how acrobats' living/working conditions are just as poor in 3.. 2.. 1..

Couldn't agree more.

I think the decision not to have animals in the Cirque du Soleil was also a business decision: animals are expensive and unreliable, so cutting them reduced expenses a lot. The downside was that there were no exotic animals to draw people to the show, so maybe less demand.

Times had changed though. Back when Barnum & Bailey got started, elephants were truly exotic: many people who went to the show had never seen them before. Even photographs were rare. When Cirque got started in the 1980s, elephants were not mysterious exotic creatures any more.

I always thought of Cirque de Soleil as a more of an adult show? No? Not that there is adult content, but I had the impression that they are marketed towards entertaining adults. Do they market to families as well?

Ringling Bros always were a thing to bring your kids to, they were always marketed primarily towards children. I can totally see an adult couple going to Cirque de Soleil, I can't really see an adult couple going to Ringling Bros without children.

I may be way off base here.

Wild animals appeal mostly to children. I gotta agree though, animal acts are totally outdated. Especially now.

For Cirque, I think it was a business decision but also a different market than Ringling Bros.

There's a Cirque du Soleil show with more adult content: https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/zumanity

I would say that cirque markets itself to both adults and families, while Ringling Bros. and traditional circuses market themselves solely to families. We took our 3 year old to Cirque and he was talking about it for days. There's plenty of packages / concessions / etc. when you go to a Cirque show that are obviously targeted at kids.

That's awesome they do both. I only ever even heard of them as an adult so I didn't know.

(I wanted to go to a show but my other half vetoed....)

There's still shit like Cavalia, capitalizing on the chic of Soleil while still forcing animals to perform.

Cirque du Soleil does put on an amazing show, but their medium is much closer to modern dance, ballet, opera, or musical theater than to the historical Ringling Bros. If you're in an IATSA hall on Broadway or at a casino, you're not the circus.

All the slights about 'kids these days' with their TV, YouTube, Pokémon Go, and short attention spans seem pretty unfounded. I see tons of kids lining up to see Cirque du Soleil, or Wicked, or Penn & Teller. All of those shows are just as long as the circus, and much more expensive.

If I had to guess I would say that our standards for 'awe-inspiring' have changed. Dancing elephants are a lot less exotic when you can watch them in 1080p with David Attenborough narrating. The human acrobatics are nice, but not as thrilling as Cirque du Soleil or the X-Games. Add in the nagging feeling that watching animals perform is unsavory at best, and it's no wonder that the business was unsustainable.

> All the slights about 'kids these days' with their TV, YouTube, Pokémon Go, and short attention spans seem pretty unfounded

...and people have been saying it for years. The distracting thing has changed over time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

First (not really, but gotta start somewhere) it was books, then it was comics, then it was television, then it was computers, then it was smartphones, then it'll be VR, and then it'll be...

Kids these days...

I've got a lot of mixed emotions about this. It was interesting that CBS aired a story on Friday about the 'first female ring master'[1] and then it drops that the show is closing.

An acquaintance of mine from grade school has pretty tirelessly crusaded against circuses for their mistreatment of animals. And for them, even the notion that you could "take excellent care" of an animal in your care that your raised from birth is an abomination if that animal is not allowed to run free in their original habitat (not that they would survive at that point but still...) But I've always enjoyed people pushing themselves to the edge to see if they can. As a result high wire acts, trapezes, and even the clown routines are fond memories for me.

If I'm honest with myself though it is just nostalgia for a different time. That time is past, whether or not there is a circus to go to.

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ringling-brothers-woman-ringmast...

I'm also against circuses massively, pushing people to their limits is fine and great if people are up for it, animals taken from their environment just to entertain us? Less so. If we want to "enjoy" an animal it should be on their terms.

We have Circu De Soleil now though, right? They don't use animals and do some amazing things. I'm not sure what there is to morn.

> animals taken from their environment just to entertain us?

Funny thing-- it's not too much of a stretch to extend this to pet ownership, as well. I have mixed feelings about all of it, honestly, but since these are essentially intractable problems at this point in time, I believe it comes down to how each individual animal is treated.

I certainly think it's quite possible to have a large, 'exotic' animal who is trained to perform from birth to be happy and have a decent quality of life, just as I think the same is possible for that puppy or kitty adopted by someone you know. It seems clear to me that neither is ideal, but there are plenty of examples of better and worse situations. It's not black & white.

Regardless, in my view, anyone concerned enough to protest the treatment of animals in circuses and/or zoos is being hypocritical if they're not working just as hard (or harder) to end the suffering of all the other sentient creatures we subject to 'unnatural' conditions on a vastly larger scale. Right now, the best we can seem do is keep saying "spay and neuter" like we have for at least half a century, and too many people still don't even seem to be getting that utterly basic message.

Surely you don't mean dogs! Long history of evolving from grey wolves living alongside people in mutually beneficial ways.

> Regardless, in my view, anyone concerned enough to protest the treatment of animals in circuses and/or zoos is being hypocritical if they're not working just as hard (or harder) to end the suffering of all the other sentient creatures we subject to 'unnatural' conditions on a vastly larger scale.

It's unreasonable to expect someone to solve all problems at once. If you went to work and your boss complained you weren't working on enough problems, you'd likely tell them that you need to focus on the most pressing or solvable issue first, and yet you're saying the opposite about this group of people.

Making a decision to focus on one element of the problem in order to move towards a solution is what practical people who solve problems do. Calling them hypocritical for not solving the (massive) related problem of animals as a human food source isn't reasonable.

From an engineering perspective, the 'best' long term approaches are those which produce either the largest number or largest percentage of desired outcomes. Also, getting people to change their historical mindset is a big part of effecting progress. To me, if you get people treating their pets and food animals better, 'performing' or 'display' animals would follow course.

Singling out one species with a tiny number of members in a very unusual and rare use case may be great for splashy awareness campaigns, but unless whoever you're making more aware is also likely to carry that over into their treatment of other animals, I feel like you've fundamentally failed to begin to address the biggest part of the root problem.

> From an engineering perspective, the 'best' long term approaches are those which produce either the largest number or largest percentage of desired outcomes.

Given that activists have been working on this for several decades, what would you have done differently, and how would it have been more successful given the same resources?

> Also, getting people to change their historical mindset is a big part of effecting progress.

Would you say that getting people to change their historical mindset such that they no longer countenance animals being used for circus entertainment progress?

If you consider the use of elephants for profit-driven entertainment to be the same as cats or dogs, or even cows and horses, you need to learn the history of domestication.

My point is that they could all be treated better, and it's absurd to draw arbitrary lines between species when you're talking in general terms. A huge variety of creatures are very trainable when raised by humans from birth, and while selective breeding has made some more 'tame' and useful than others, it doesn't make them all that different from the less shepherded ones in ethics terms.

Yes, you can argue that for-profit display is a little different than decorative or companion animals, which is a lot different from utility animals (much fewer of these are necessary in modern environments) or food animals (technically none of these are necessary), but they all have brains similar enough to ours that they think and feel, and the ones with the largest populations which suffer the most (arguably mistreated cats and dogs) deserve every bit as much concern - if not more, due to their sheer numbers - as animals used for profit (some of which are treated better than others, which is a hard thing to categorize).

You are not listening. It is not absurd.

Elephants are wild animals. They probably are smart enough to qualify as minors, - so they can and do adapt to a wide variety of conditions, - but it does not change the fact that to express the fullness of their being they need to roam free with a pack of their own kind.

Pets and other domestic animals are different in kind. They have been bred over many generations to form a symbiotic relationship with humans. Their natural environment is a human controled environment, and you would do them a diservice by releasing them in the wild. Again, some of the most intelligent (pigs and dogs come to mind) would probably cope and eventually revert to their predomestication baseline (over several generations, though). But that does not change the fact that they need a human element in their lives in order to express the fullness of their being.

I wont argue your ethical points, because it is ultimatelly a matter of personal values. But if you want to start a discusion about that, you need to get the facts straight... and the facts say that different species of animals do have different needs, regardless of their feellings and inteligence.

"an abomination if that animal is not allowed to run free in their original habitat"

So I'm abusing my kids if I don't air drop them in the Rift Valley in Africa and hope for the best.

That is of course the logical extreme of the argument. I too don't agree with it, and wonder what will happen when we discover a species that has evolved to live only in EPA Superfund sites, do we destroy its habitat by cleaning up the pollution or do we preserve the species and leave the planet polluted?

Both arguments speak to the futility of arguing staticism in an evolving world.

No, because humans were not meant to be cut off from their community and dropped in the wild. Human children, in particular, are less prepared to cope with the dangers of being isolated early in life, compared with the way other mammal species are.

Your example is about as accurate as saying that the circus owners are abusing their animals by not paying them a fair wage.

Should be noted some zoos do spend enough on habitats to make them worthwhile, however this is very slim as well as not doable for all animals.

In my state (Colorado) we have something called a sanctuary [1]. From humans being put high up into the air (via a 40 foot tall bridge that crosses the entire complex) which simulates a more natural way for us to observe the different animals they house (they specialize in carnivorous species), to larger and more natural feeling habitats for each different species (over 720 Acres devoted to over 450 rescued animals)

They spoke of Zoos and how bad they are most of the time, however the Denver Zoo they said were better then most other Zoos in our country when it came to building decent habitats. However in my opinion the sanctuary is an example of how every Zoo should alter its setup. I wouldn't even mind helping donate to my local zoo for this change and I highly believe the masses would contribute as well.

[1] http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org

That zoo expands on the Hagenbeck concept – an idea Carl Hagenbeck developed in 1907, where he wanted to construct a zoo without glass or fences – and researched how far and high animals could leap, and just built moats of the appropriate size around their habitat sin his zoo.

You can read more about the original concept here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierpark_Hagenbeck#Panorama_ex...

Very interesting I'm gonna forward this to the Sanctuary they should have this in the intro* talk they give to each new group. Thank you!

If you live within a drive of the Washington D.C. zoo, much of the zoo is built in this way. There's even a rope over the humans that monkeys can climb across to navigate between different parts of their habitat.

However, some of the harder to contain animals still end up behind glass or bars. But then you can also get up to within an inch or two of a mature Gorilla and interact with him a bit.

I can't help but feel sad for the animals, but you can also learn tremendous amounts about them by seeing them so close.

That's kind of sad as we were just at the Miami show this Saturday. I've never been to a circus and this was the first time for our son and I. I didn't even realize the elephants weren't in the show. It just never occurred to me that they were a requirement.

The show was really good. The audience was full of kids. For a 11AM showing I was expecting a half filled arena but it was surprisingly full. Tickets were $18-$35 which for a live performance really is good value compared to a movie theater.

The theme for this show was space exploration so they had a lot more human daredevil stunts. The animal entertainment I do remember were the big cats, horses ridden by kazakhs, and domesticated animals doing parlor tricks (dogs, a big pig, and llamas). The ice skaters, motorcyclists, and flying acrobats had a bigger impact. Okay, the big cats too. They were really amazing.

Sad to see it go, it's my first time and now I see it will be the last time.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is waking up early in the morning to see the elephants come through the Lincoln Tunnel.

It was a truly wonderful experience, one that I wish I could share with others without supporting the overarching practice of show elephants.

They could make them animatronic.

Indeed, although I suspect that it would be easier to just put paper-mache elephants on car floats ;)

The entire point of having elephants at the circus is to see elephants. Real, living, breathing elephants, social creatures which weigh several tons with a brain three times the size of yours - and, in the best case, to see them interacting with humans as part of an elaborately choreographed performance showcasing the strength and skill and agility of man and beast alike.

Animatronic mockeries? Why bother?

Royal de Luxe seems to do well with their giant elephant puppet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_de_Luxe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_de_luxe_%C3%A0_Amie...

Precisely. You can celebrate the animal without keeping them captive.

Animatronic dinosaurs, why bother?

It's because keeping a highly intelligent animal captive and part of a circus borders on cruelty even if the crew is doing their utmost to help the animals.

In the wild they roam over extraordinary distances. They're creatures that explore. Keeping them penned in, if not for conservation or academic purposes, is something we should avoid.

If they could give consent, sure, but I don't see that bridge being crossed any time soon.

Note this also applies to dolphins and other non-human people.

> It's because keeping a highly intelligent animal captive and part of a circus borders on cruelty even if the crew is doing their utmost to help the animals.

This adequately answers "why not real elephants?" but doesn't answer "why bother with animatronics" at all.

> Animatronic dinosaurs, why bother?

Is there someone who bothers?

At this point, it's pretty tough to feel good about a circus modeled around 19th century nostalgia.

We all kind of know that we're well beyond sheer domination of all things earthly and bestial. There's not much to revel in, and it's not valuable to teach your children to revel in such displays.

Maybe it'll put a smile on their face, and they'll talk about it for weeks afterward, but there are other things going on in the world right now, and it's probably a good idea to figure out how to entertain our kids more wisely.

Perhaps we should stop sending our kids to schools designed around a model of classroom learning in the 19th century, also. Overdiagnosis of ADHD is the result of forcing kids to sit down and shut up for 10 hours a day

Perhaps we should, but what does have to do with the topic at hand?

It is a response to the grandparent comment. Sending kids to institutions that are substantially in the same mod as when they were founded in the 19th century. In the case of school, they are forced.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/26/school_is_a_prison_and_damag...

If you still don't believe me, read the comparison between school and prison by none other than Paul Graham in his essay "why nerds are unpopular". That should get me some upvotes lol.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

It doesn't matter what I believe. The topic at hand is circuses, not all 19th century institutions.

The topic of that comment was 19th century institutions that kids are sent to today.

Complete strawman argument.

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

I fail to see the relevance. Could you explain what you mean?

> We all kind of know that we're well beyond sheer domination of all things earthly and bestial. There's not much to revel in, and it's not valuable to teach your children to revel in such displays.

I certainly don't know that, and I do think it's valuable to teach a child to how to wisely and kindly exercise authority over the world and the animals in it. Were circuses a vehicle for doing that? I don't really know — it's been decades since I've seen one, and I can't remember any of it now.

There's no doubt that people want to see exotic animals. Reputable zoos made a transition from entertainment to conservation, but many still have issues. There's no way circuses could ever do that. It's just antithetical to what they are.

Animal issues aside, it's a very dated form of entertainment. Frankly, I'm surprised it made it as far as the 1960s.

Go to Africa or India and see an elephant or lion where it lives. The zoos are only slightly less horrible than the circus.

It's debatable whether introducing humans into wild animal habitats causes less harm than introducing wild animals into human habitats. Certainly better for the individual animals, but I'd imagine that having a bunch of jeeps running around on safari in the middle of virgin wilderness has all sorts of negative effects on the ecosystem.

Nice theory but there are a lot of people in Africa without a lot of money who are looking for things to eat. No safaris etc. means no justification for some of these pristine parks, least of all for enforcement.

Witness the scores of elephant poisonings in Zimbabwe for poaching purposes. If you view people as contradictory to Nature, your efforts on the largest of continents will come to naught.

It's so easy to argue for ideological purity when it doesn't directly affect you or your family (abstract you, for all I know you may live down the road from Kruger). Ultimately though there has to be an incentive for the people affected to part with the resources and opportunity offered by the big animals. Safaris are one (not terribly effective) compromise that at least justifies economically why big animals need to be preserved (no animals means no safaris means a lot less rich visitors).

Sure, but it's the only option. Without safari parks, it'd all be farms/cities. Conservation doesn't make sense unless it makes dollars.

Not sure why the downvotes for this; maybe it was the way it was said? Ultimately, I feel that conservation that balance some of the local interests in mind will run into much fewer problems than those that don't.

I also feel that you need some of the natural habitat to remain humanly accessible, in part so that people can experience nature and thus get behind preservation efforts. Creating walled off territory where no one but a few Specially Approved Scientists and deep backpackers can enter does not seem to be the best way to build public support. For portions of land, it may be necessary (hence the wilderness preserve designation in many places) but for much of the land, there is a fine balance between preservation and accessibility.

Safari parks are imperfect but in my opinion fall into this category. Even in the US, the politics of parks can be contentious. (http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/storie...) I can only imagine what a developing country would be like.

That said regarding an earlier comment, I don't view all zoos as 100% horrible these days. A lot are making genuine efforts to try and improve animal welfare as much as possible.

I hope you aren't assuming animals are roaming streets of Africa. I live 60km away from Kruger National Park but have never seen an elephant strolling down a street. Majority of us also go to the zoo to see elephants, just like everyone else.

I was just in Kruger last month. Why on earth would you go to a zoo if you live so close to it?

I keep on postponing the trip. I always tell myself that I will go next year. Been postponing for 20 years now. People who stay closer to something rarely values it. Most people closer to the national parks will pick Eiffel Tower over going to the national park anyday. Vice versa.

Its interesting that for everyone involved its unthinkable to transition from "performance" jumping thru flaming hoops and the like to being a traveling zoo. Better to close than not jump thru hoops of fire.

I'd expect there to be a larger faction of the population who are cool with Tigers and want to see one, but flaming hoops don't light their fire.

I would imagine a pivot to traveling zoo would take major business changes to move away from the stadium experience and towards more of an amusement park or zoo like experience.

Shame. I went when I was a kid and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The elephants were my favorite. I was in awe of a HUGE bull elephant with giant gilded tusks straight out of an indian fairy tale. I think I still have a poster from that event.

Not really. The animals don't deserve this treatment.

Ok then, elephants were not his favorite.

Reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKccr8g1xCU

You misunderstood. gnarbarian didn't thoroughly enjoy himself.

I think circuses should use only dogs and horses if they want to use animals. These animals are completely domesticated and can be trained with no cruelty. And they can do more impressive tricks than wild animals, so the only drawback is that they're more common. If people want to see rare animals they can go to a zoo.

When an animal is employed toward a human's profit, it usually ends poorly for the animal.

The average working dog or working horse has a better life than the average wild animal or food animal, and very few people are campaigning for the elimination of wild and food animals. Working animals are specifically bred to enjoy working with humans, and some breeds have a temperament that can tolerate the chaotic environment of a circus. Working for a circus is no worse than working as a police dog or police horse.

But Silicon Valley should house all that want to afford there? Pure snark but related.

"The animals don't deserve this treatment."

That sounds an awful lot like an opinion stated as fact.

I'd be interested to know what an animal could do to deserve to be beaten to preform tricks and then ferried around in small cages for human entertainment.

fairly certain they don't beat them anymore.

Well certainly now that they're out of business.

They did at least 8 years ago[1], though. Not sure how anyone could believe that they could make animals do unnatural tricks day in day out without coercion.

I can see why someone would want to believe though. Tf you don't think about it, it'd probably be more enjoyable.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8YQKpTu-4

>PETA

Going to need a better source than a group who considers pets "animal enslavement"

If you're claiming there's context to the beating of the elephants in the video, I find that hard to believe.

If you're claiming it's staged, pretty sure Ringling would have had a field day with that.

A conversation is pretty much done when a side doesn't have anything reasonable to say and resorts to ad hominem attacks.

Not that it's really relevant to any other animal, but you can train dogs using only love, positive reinforcement, and a stern voice. No physical punishment is necessary.

"fairly certain they don't beat them anymore."

That sounds an awful lot like an opinion stated as fact.

It's not possible to get an elephant to preform extremely unnatural tricks without beating it with a bullhook.

If you don't believe they use them just look at pictures of the shows. The handlers are holding bullhook. Here's some pics - http://www.thedodo.com/the-one-simple-reason-you-shou-604357...

In fact the main reason elephants were retired from Ringling Bros in the first place was because cities were making handling elephants using bullhooks illegal. That prevented Ringling Bros from ever preforming in certain cities again if they kept the elephant acts. More and more cities were joining on and then the entire state of California made handling elephants with bullhooks illegal. California, Population: 38.8 million. Ringling could have either given up California or given up the elephants, they picked California.

Even if they weren't beaten with bullhooks, a circus environment doesn't come close to meeting an elephant's needs.

Well this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_goad is what is used to get elephants to do circus tricks, FWIW.

(Ignoring the concerns of taking a highly social animal with a natural range of 500,000 or so acres and shackling them and confining them to a few square feet...)

Sad. It will be tough on the circus folk. That's a culture of its own, with hard-won skills useless elsewhere. Now they have to find other jobs.

There's always politics.

We debated this in our household years ago. Seeing live animals like orcas and dolphins and elephants etc.. gives children an appreciation of those species they can't get any other way. To see them is extremely important to understanding why they should be protected.

Is it better to not be able to see them for yourselves live - the enormity and grace - or just not learn about them at all. Having sea world and zoos and circuses benefit the cause for conservation.

(I lost the debate in my household)

Yes, it is important to understand the awesome beauty of nature and why we should protect it. Ironically, you would be harming these animals by supporting the institutions that enslave them. There are many ways to learn about subjects without observing them first-hand, especially these days with immersive media technology. Alternatively, there are sanctuaries that exist primarily for the well-being of the animals, though they may take some effort to discover and visit.

<There are many ways to learn about subjects without observing them first-hand,

The crux of family debate. I do not agree that vr or any other form has the same effect and affect as seeing and touching these love creatures. Zoos etc teach and discovery is personal ( not like a video or lecture)

This is so incredibly sad. :( My parents used to take me so often in Boston. I hope the performers manage to land on their feet.

10/10 pun

I'm not sure if anything is as indicative of changes in these modern times as this.

That's a really long time. I'm curious what other really long running shows of any type are still going out there.

The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie has been running for almost 65 years (it's been running continually since it opened in 1952).

This is good news. I believe that circuses and zoos will be viewed, in retrospect, quite harshly in the future, and we'll wonder why the unnatural confinement of animals was so normalized. I have fond memories of these places as a child, but I went to the San Diego Zoo last year and the animals just looked miserable in the summer heat - especially the polar bears.

Circus, sure. Zoo, I don't believe it. A lot of zoos perform conservation work, and a lot of this work is funded thanks in part to zoo patronage.

Zoos? Quite frankly without zoos, the holocene mass extinction would be going even stronger.

There are species that only live in zoos. In other words, if it wasn't for zoos, these animals would be extinct (in part due to human over-hunting). Some species that were once on the edge of extinction have been re-released into the wild due to the efforts of the zoos, and they should be commended for this kind of effort.

If feelings and social signalling get "us" to a place, you can't expect logic and reason to get "us" out. Zoos are utterly doomed, it doesn't matter if they're logically or rationally good or not.

Modern zoos are orders of magnitude nicer to animals than historic zoos were and far nicer than circuses could ever be. The Asheville zoo, which I visited regularly while growing up, gives the elephants 37 acres.

According to this preservation group's website[0], the territorial range of wild African elephants can extend as far as 2,700,000 acres. Zoos are moving away from the concrete boxes but I don't know that it could ever be enough to truly offer these and all the other animals in our zoos a decent life.

As I wrote in a separate post in this thread, I find zoos to be inhumane for this reason and I believe the millions spent on zoos could preserve and encourage the populations of wild animals in-situ by also providing economic development to the nearby human populations so they don't resort to habitat destruction or poaching.

[0]http://www.globalelephants.org/space-much-enough/

How do you feel about pet ownership? [My prior comment, also in this thread, is a brief summary of what I think about it.]

I read your comment and I can understand your viewpoint.

My opinion is that it's most realistic to make the admittedly arbitrary call that domesticated animals are a historical fact at this point and there's no way to put them 'back into nature.' I think these domesticated animals and pets should be offered the most humane lives possible within the cultural relationship with humans. I try to eat mostly vegetarian but I don't believe absolutism is healthy or a realistic way to live life.

I don't approve of exotic animal pets, mostly because I feel that the animals likely won't fair well under care that is probably insufficient to their needs, and also that they like zoo inhabitants would be better off in their natural (non-anthropogenic) habitats experiencing life as their species should.

What happens to all the animals?

Conservation parks.

>The [owners] say their existing animals — lions, tigers, camels, donkeys, alpacas, kangaroos and llamas — will go to suitable homes... the company will continue operating the Center for Elephant Conservation.

The circus is an affectation of nostalgia held by people that weren't even born when the circus was still a thing. They may have read a book when they were children that was 40 or 50 years old at that time that showed clowns and happy lions and bears dancing on balls. Like other cultural touchstones, horse racing, boxing, the Harlem Globetrotters, their time is past. They've been existing on fumes for decades and, now, those fumes are dissipating.

>"The circus is an affectation of nostalgia held by people that weren't even born when the circus was still a thing."

So identical to "mixologists" with Reconstruction-era facial hair that make pre-prohibition era cocktails for adults. These are are hugely popular though and seemingly everywhere these days.

Also circuses are for children, thats the target demographic. I don't think a 5 or 6 year old has an "affectation of nostalgia."

The Big Apple Circus, which has only used domesticated animals for years, is liquidating. The Ringling Bros. closing would have eventually happened, with or without the protests.

I went to a circus here in Germany and it only featured domesticated animals such as camels, goats, donkeys, llamas and sheep. Wasn't too bad but I still felt sorry for them =\

Could have evolved into a 100 youtube channels. Failed opportunity.

If you're ever in Sarasota, FL check out the Ringling museum. The circus was a remarkable moving city.

This is good news.

There's no reason to treat animals like they do, in 2017. Do a VR one.

VR will pick up on this space :)

We've gone from a time where entertainment was one size fits all, to a world where all sizes try to fit you.

I'm stealing this one.

It's just the shakeout of a shifting entertainment marketplace.

All markets are cyclical.

Though I'm sure PETA will take plenty of credit.

Fuck 'em.

Lol, we shoot animals in the head, cut their flesh from their bodies and consume it for fun.

Should we give animals a life without predators(aka murders) shelter and food it's bad.

> "I applaud their decision to move away from an institution grounded on inherently inhumane wild animal acts."

Humans are wild animals, yet we don't want to live in the wild, it kinda sucks bigtime.

In recent years, Ringling Bros. tried to remain relevant, hiring its first African American ringmaster, then its first female ringmaster, and also launching an interactive app. It added elements from its other, popular shows, such as motorbike daredevils and ice skaters. But it seemingly was no match for Pokemon Go and a generation of kids who desire familiar brands and YouTube celebrities.

I think if they made a great app and some kind of brand phenomenon, it could have gone very differently.

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