Early Retirement for Ringling’s Elephants
Thursday, January 14th, 2016January 14, 2016
Less than a year after Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced it would be retiring its elephants by 2018, they have moved the retirement date up by a year and a half. The 11 elephants on tour with the circus will be joining the rest of the herd in May at Ringling’s 200-acre (80-hectare) Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida.
After 145 years of featuring the animals in its “Greatest Show on Earth,” the circus is phasing out its elephant act and focusing their efforts on elephant conservation programs in North America and Sri Lanka. Critics noted the retirement comes after years of scrutiny and criticism concerning the organization’s training and treatment of elephants, especially while on tour. Tours can involve the animals traveling to over 100 cities in a year. Several cities have banned shows with live elephants, making Ringling’s planning of its circus tour more difficult.
Ringling’s conservation center is working to help increase the number of Asian elephants. There are only about 40,000 to 50,000 of this endangered species remaining in the wild. Since the 1860′s, the animal’s population has been halved. Threats to elephant survival include habitat loss, conflict with humans, and illegal wildlife trade, especially of ivory from elephant tusks. Wildlife experts agree that elephants are in great danger and need human protection to survive.
In addition to conservation, the retired elephants at the Center for Elephant Conservation will be a part of cancer research. Cancer is much more common in humans than elephants, even though the second largest animal on land has many more cells in its body. This has baffled scientists for years, but they now think they may have an explanation and high hopes that it will lead to new ways to protect humans from cancer. Elephants have 20 times the copies of a major cancer-suppressing gene than humans. This gene helps in repairing damaged cells that have been exposed to cancer-causing substances.