America’s popular Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has bid a fond farewell to its performing elephants, as the show closed its own chapter on a practice that has entertained audiences in America for two centuries, but had come under fire from animal rights activists.
The crowd cheered as six Asian elephants entered the arena to perform in an act that had them dancing, balancing on each others’ backs, sitting on their hind legs and pretending to sleep.
After their last performance on Sunday, the animals will live at Ringling’s 200-acre Centre for Elephant Conservation in Florida, according to the executive vice president of Feld Entertainment, which owns the circus.
Its herd of 40 Asian elephants, the largest in North America, will continue a breeding programme and be used in a pediatric cancer research project.
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