Do you think Barnum and Bailey eliminating elephants from the circus will have a positive or negative effect on their business?

Positive? I had no idea that Barnum and Bailey – or the circus – was still a thing. This news report is likely to remind people that this is still a thing, and some people might go.

Negative. How can you have a circus without elephants!!

I think they’ll be missed, they’re a part of our cultural history and the history of the circus in particular. But it is a positive thing because elephants are too intelligent to be used for a circus. They probably suffer evenwhen they are well treated. It’s just unnatural. Like everything else that we love and then realize is harmful, we will come to accept it as a cultural sort of evolution. We will smile sadly when we see pictures and remember how it used to be. It will be a part of history that might seem strange in the future even though it seems so essential to the circus now. So we will adjust as we always do.

I loved the image of a showgirl riding an elephant when I was a child. (And oh how I loved the image of Reese Witherspoon doing it in Water for Elephants!) But when I became an adult and learned what was harmful about it it made me feel a sort of sadness.

As far as the business of the circus they will replace it with something else and hopefully keep the circus alive. Human connection with animals is something most people seek out. Spectacle is something most people enjoy. How can we combine the 2 things and be sensitive to the health and emotional well-being of the animals concerned?

Yes, @BeenThereSaidThat, it’s hard for me to imagine a circus poster without an elephant on it. It’ll be a fine line touting the absence of elephants as a good thing while not admitting to the decades of abuse the elephants were subjected to.

I think we might be approaching a time when we will be able to create affordable, realistic, mechanical animals, @David_Achilles. A spectacle of ‘re-creation’. If you’ve seem an Imax 3-D movie, amazing things are already possible.

It’s not just the elephants that are on their way out. If you have or know kids you care about, and want them to experience the circus, it’s probably not a good idea to put it off for a few years. I doubt very much if my grandsons’ kids will have an opportunity to see anything like the circus of my day.

@stanleybmanly.

The circus isn’t about elephants. Or lions. Or passenger pigeons. It’s about wonder. Grandeur. Larger-than-life spectacle and slight-of-hand. Exotica.
Once upon a time, humans had to rely on nature to supply circus attractions.

Fact is, it’s possible your grandson’s kids will be able to visit a digital circus that puts your boyhood experience to shame…they may walk among dinosaurs.

I think it’s a good thing, and I think a lot of the younger generations will respond positively to it. If I have children, I won’t take them to the circus if they use live animals, just like I won’t take them to Sea World or any other similar aquariums.

Digital dinosaurs or elephants will never top the old days when the Ringling Brothers circus train came annually to this town. Talk about wonder! I’d haul my kids to the foot of Geneva ave. where the railroad marshaling yard met the city. There, parked on the tracks would be what looked like half a mile of circus cars. The entire outfit would unload from those cars, and the elephants would actually be put to work in the task. It was magical to watch. Flat bed trucks would drive off flat bed rail cars, and cages of lions and tigers quickly loaded onto the trucks. Then the whole show would parade straight up Geneva with the elephants horses and other exotic herbivores “on the hoof” all the way to the Cow Palace. The event always took place in the dead of night, and there was never any announcement or publicity about it. Back then the circus was popular enough that the circus train would be on that siding for a week. Now the rail yard is gone, and the circus no longer bothers with performing in San Francisco.

I think it will have no effect. I’m very glad they won’t be using elephants anymore.

If you want to see elephants, why not visit a zoo instead?
They have all sorts of other critters as well, and they are not forced to play monkey for you puny humans. Still imprisoned, though.
Besides, a circus relying elephants is lazy.
Letting an elephant walk around in a circle is easy.
Acrobatics is hard.

Do people still go to the circus? Do they still have sideshows? Circuses seem like a relic from the 19th century, like burlesque and minstrel shows.

@stanleybmanly -
Have you seen the movie Water for Elephants? You might like it. Thank you for painting that vivid picture of how the circus used to be. I understand people hate the cruelty to the animals but there is no denying that back in the day, for most people, especially those living in small towns, the circus truly was the “Greatest Show on Earth”.

My best guess is that people who are concerned about the treatment of animals will continue to avoid the circus. I know I will.

Circus World is planning to continue using elephants as long as possible, but it appears they are non-traveling.

Have you visited Baraboo, @stanleybmanly?