Ringling Elephants into Retirement

Early May of this year, eleven female elephants who have been in the circus for decades are going to get off the train for good and retire. They will live out their remaining years at Ringling’s Center for Elephant Conservation, on 200 remote acres somewhere near Disney World. They will be joining 29 other elephants who retired earlier.
Ringling circus was accused of animal abuse by animal rights activists for years. “When we announced last year that we would retire the elephants by 2018, we basically drew a line in the sand, then started to work backwards,” said Payne. “We were surprised after a lot of hard work by the center staff that we had the barn space, the pasture space, and the water resources for moving the elephants sooner rather than later.”
The conservation center will continue to mate the elephants to continue growing its herd. Scientists also use these elephants to learn more and study why elephants get cancer so often. So next time you want to bash Ringling, think about the good they have done and this huge step they took for these elephants. Like they said, it wasn't easy "it's not like moving a bowl of goldfish".

bird view of the conservation center
 



happy elephant