Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey have closed down.

[Togath]

After one hundred and forty six years, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus has closed down.
I just... it's depressing. I've always wanted to go to stuff like that, and now it seems it'll be harder than ever.
Maybe with luck some other folks will come together in the future for more events like this... but for now, the world is a little bit of an emptier place. It's been a heck of a year so far.
I know this post doesn't really lend to a thread much... it's just frustrating to see such a cool thing end after all these years, and I guess I'm curious if anyone else here is sad to see that circus close down.

[Razade]

The circus has been an antiquated bit of culture for at least thirty years. Probably longer. Their inhumane treatment of animals and generally poor treatment of their workers is another reason why this is both great news and not shocking at all.

[Togath]

I really don't get the accusations of animal abuse. I've read the arguments by the folks who protest it, and I really don't get it. Stuff like a circus training animals to perform is fine by me. It's always seemed odd to me how twitchy some people can be about having animals in captivity or training them to perform.

[Razade]

I don't have a problem with having animals in captivity. I grew up with dogs all my life, I'm fine with people owning all sorts of animals. I don't have a problem with training animals to preform either, I quite enjoy watching dog shows actually. Not a big fan of breed standards due to all the inbreeding and other health problems related to them but that's beside the point. It's dismissive to simply brush people aside as "twitchy" in light of the serious and violent abuses the animals are put through.

Tiger cages that are too small for the tigers to live in comfortably, to the point that the stress they go through causes their hair to fall out. Beating and harming elephants that don't behave in training. Forcing animals to deal with fire, considering most animals have a natural aversion to the stuff not to mention how crazy dangerous it is to the animal. Numerous tigers and other animals trained to deal with fire have hurt themselves severely because they freak out and miss jumps and make other accidents. Whipping animals to train them, prodding them with cattle prods to train them, that's not humane treatment of the animals.

How about the danger just having the animals posses to the people at the event? How many times have elephants, spooked by movement or fire or something else, run away into crowds? If you think the number is like one or two you need to bump it up. The travel alone is hard on the animals which have to spend it in the aforementioned cages. Animals aren't designed to live in boxes. Where do you think these animals are kept in the off season? Not in zoos and other enclosures where they have lots of room to run around. Nope. In boxes. That's not humane treatment of animals.

Every major circus in the U.S has violated the Animal Welfare Act. That is what I have a problem with. These animals are not being treated well, the abuse has to stop. This is just the animals mind you. I don't even want to get into the serious hazards of working for a circus as a human performer. The circus is antiquated and the sooner we end all of them the better.

[WarKitty]

One notable thing is the bigger the animal, the more room it really needs. You can keep a cat or a small dog in a small apartment. Larger dogs need more space. Big animals like lions or bears need a lot of space to live in - more than is really possible with a travel cage.

[Togath]

I suppose that explains it a little bit. Still, stuff like cage size and "flaming tiger charges into both the audience and flammable stands" risk(which, presumably, has not happened specifically yet, given I've never heard of it.) seem much more like a "the circus just needs to change a few things" thing than a "circuses are are evil by default!" thing.
Also a risk of having equipment/structures/etc trashed by an animal seems bad for any business. Since it means potentially losing both your stands/enclosures/etc as well as the expensive(both in money and training time) animal.
I am curious, where did you come across the reports of stuff like elephants charging crowds and being a modern human circus performer being an unliked job by the participants?(not doubting you necessarily, just curious).

[Me1000]

Thats sad I really loved their shows

[Togath]

Thats sad I really loved their shows

I'll be totally honest, I really don't care that much about the animal rights issues. I'm much more "woah, the show is cool!" too.

[Aedilred]

We actually had a thread about this a couple of months ago when the announcement was made. My opinion hasn't really changed.

Whether or not you care about the animal rights issues is a personal thing. Whether or not they're happening, by generally-agreed standards, isn't. The public moral and legal view of animal rights issues has reached the point where having wild animals as circus performers is no longer acceptable, and to be honest it reached that point decades ago. There is often a slight sadness to seeing companies that have become social institutions close down, but they are nevertheless business concerns and need to remain viable and relevant in order to survive. If the circus can't adapt and change to draw audiences in the absence of those acts, then it doesn't deserve to stay open.

[Sermil]

After one hundred and forty six years, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus has closed down.
I just... it's depressing. I've always wanted to go to stuff like that, and now it seems it'll be harder than ever.
Maybe with luck some other folks will come together in the future for more events like this... but for now, the world is a little bit of an emptier place. It's been a heck of a year so far.
I know this post doesn't really lend to a thread much... it's just frustrating to see such a cool thing end after all these years, and I guess I'm curious if anyone else here is sad to see that circus close down.

You can always go see a Cirque du Soleil show. Honestly, I liked them much better than Ringling Bros anyways (their performers are more skillful, IMHO) and there's no animals, so they're not facing any controversy over animal treatment and should be around for a long time.

[Togath]

You can always go see a Cirque du Soleil show. Honestly, I liked them much better than Ringling Bros anyways (their performers are more skillful, IMHO) and there's no animals, so they're not facing any controversy over animal treatment and should be around for a long time.

Looking it up, I seem to have confused the two somehow.
*though I still do feel a lot of people are a tad overly harsh on Ringling/B&B.

[Delicious Taffy]

Looking it up, I seem to have confused the two somehow.
*though I still do feel a lot of people are a tad overly harsh on Ringling/B&B.

It's not "overly harsh" to point out that the places have abused the hell out of some animals. That's an objective fact. There's really no justifying it, either, since a few of your stereotypical circus animals aren't exactly the most populous of species.

[Togath]

More it seems like calling for them to change makes more sense than calling for circuses to go away entirely. ^_^;

[Razade]

More it seems like calling for them to change makes more sense than calling for circuses to go away entirely. ^_^;

How do you change when the animals are the main draw? How do you change when that isn't the only problem that circuses have? It's not like dropping the animals is going to change the decline in attendance. It's not like getting rid of the tigers and elephants is going to stop the abuse to the human performers. It's not like changing any of that will boost attendance. People weren't going to the circus even with the animals. Why would they go when you get rid of them?

But no, we should change it because Togath is sad that we're losing an antiquated piece of human history. A bygone relic that died three decades ago but didn't have the sense to know it was a walking worm heap until today.

[HandofShadows]

The end of an era. This circus was around when our great grand parents were alive. It's (was) older than many states in the US.

[WarKitty]

More it seems like calling for them to change makes more sense than calling for circuses to go away entirely. ^_^;

I think the issue is that there's probably no good way to make the changes. You just can't provide enough space for large animals in a format that's suitable for travel. We've already gotten rid of a lot of the traditional human acts because they were viewed as exploitative.

[Togath]

That's a good point, I suppose. Hmm...
Smaller animals that could travel better? Domestic cats or birds, perhaps... though that would require convincing the circus to try them, taking time to obtain and train them, AND convincing audiences they want to watch acrobatic house cats instead of exciting acrobatic humans. ^-^;

[pendell]

I'm curious; what about a virtual reality solution for the animals a la Second Livestock to give them the illusion of more space than they have?

ETA: Here's an answer: Robot circus! Replace all live animals and many performers with robots. You could even throw in battlebots-style arena battles as an extra attraction, something you couldn't do with live creatures.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Togath]

Actually... cool robots doing neat stuff would be pretty awesome!

[2D8HP]

I feel pretty much the same way as seeing all the Radio Shacks, and most Post Offices close.

Sad.

I hate "creative destruction".

[Togath]

Oddly, we still have a radioshack in the local town... doesn't get much business though.
It's odd seeing stuff go away sometimes. I still remember back when videotapes were how we watched movies, and when audio cassettes were the main way of listening to music.
Also back when there were more brightly coloured goofy cereals~

[Bartmanhomer]

I already knew that circus was going to closed. After all we did have a thread similar to this one before.

[Oneris]

I do feel a measure of sadness to see such an iconic piece of Americana go, but when you look at what else that institution grew up around: Medicine shows, Freak shows, Wild West shows, Burlesque, Vaudeville, it's probably for the best that it join its cultural siblings in being left behind as a 19th and 20th century historical novelty. They were all born of highly exploitative practices, and we've survived the losses of others just fine.

[warty goblin]

There's something weird in people not going to circuses because of animal abuses, and yet most of them continue to eat meat, probably from confinement operations. And I say this as somebody who probably would have skipped the circus for similar grounds, and eats conventionally raised meat. It's sort of like worrying about a hangnail, and then gleefully sawing off one's foot for fun.

I think what I'm really saying is that the species isn't so hot with numbers, and this can have some downright odd manifestations.

[Aedilred]

I do feel a measure of sadness to see such an iconic piece of Americana go, but when you look at what else that institution grew up around: Medicine shows, Freak shows, Wild West shows, Burlesque, Vaudeville, it's probably for the best that it join its cultural siblings in being left behind as a 19th and 20th century historical novelty. They were all born of highly exploitative practices, and we've survived the losses of others just fine.

Pretty sure burlesque is still a thing. And while some vaudeville/music-hall routines would undoubtedly be politically incorrect by today's standards I'm not sure that as a medium it was inherently exploitative.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Good riddance! Animals are living beings not your entertainment

[Razade]

Good riddance! Animals are living beings not your entertainment

Well they can be both surely? My dogs entertain me, they're animals too. There's a difference between locked in a tiny cage with no hope of ever touching grass and your cat.

[AvatarVecna]

There's something weird in people not going to circuses because of animal abuses, and yet most of them continue to eat meat, probably from confinement operations. And I say this as somebody who probably would have skipped the circus for similar grounds, and eats conventionally raised meat. It's sort of like worrying about a hangnail, and then gleefully sawing off one's foot for fun.

I think what I'm really saying is that the species isn't so hot with numbers, and this can have some downright odd manifestations.

This complaint's wrong for two reasons.

The first is one of motivation: "it's weird how people complain about animal cruelty for the sake of entertainment, but are totally okay with animal cruelty for the sake of hunger". Well...yeah. It's a lot harder to complain about somebody wanting animals to suffer so that people can not starve, as opposed to complaining about somebody wanting animals to suffer so that people can have a fun afternoon. That's not to say the suffering of animals for the sake of fighting world hunger isn't animal cruelty that needs to be addressed, just saying that one of these things has an actual argument in its defense (it's helping people live).

The second is that a lot of people do take issue with how animals bred to be eaten are treated, which is the same group that lots of the circus complaints grew out of in the first place. A solid double-digit percentage of Americans identify as vegetarian/vegan (although I can't say for sure how many of them actually are, or how many are just trying it but slipping up a little...or a lot). Meanwhile, a much larger percentage of the population is aware of the piss-poor treatment of chickens raised to be eaten. I don't think I could realistically give up meat from my diet for a couple different reasons, but the way we treat livestock is abhorrent and needs to be addressed. And all of that's not even touching on PETA members.

[Bartmanhomer]

I'm really not sad at all about their final performance. It was bound to happen anyway. At least there are other circus that don't abuse their animals.

[Togath]

Good riddance! Animals are living beings not your entertainment

Statements like this bother me. As long as an animal isn't being hurt, I see no problem at all for training it. The fact is, if the animal doesn't mind(and a non-abused trained one really generally doesn't mind), why is it a bad thing?
Is training a dog to fetch is bad? What about training a horse to be ridden? A chicken to play tic tac toe?
(Also if "living beings should never entertain" is true, then what about humans? Is a dude doing non offensive stand-up comedy a bad thing?)