Closing of the Circuses

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I think this is the proper place in the forum for this article. I found it very touching and troubling. I loved the circus (except for the high wire acts and trapeze acts, ever since I witnessed a woman falling from the trap years ago–can’t watch it since that happened. The woman lived, but was horribly injured).

What do you think? Have any of you worked in a circus or have family connections with circus? Are any of you farmers with livestock? Do any of you breed animals?

www.bedlamfarm.com

The Death Of The Circus. An American Tragedy: "Losing Our Jobs, Our Homes, Our Lives." - Bedlam Farm

Understand that for many circus people, wrote Megan O’Malley, a very gifted and dedicated blogger, musician, and employee of Ringling Bros. for the past five years,”…born into this life, it is more than just a job. It is all they have known, and all their parents have known, for generations. For...
www.bedlamfarm.com www.bedlamfarm.com
 
The Greatest Showman is one of my favorite movies of all time.
 
Family friend who was a RB/BB clown. It was wonderful to visit him!
 
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I have no connections with the circus or breeding animals; but, interestingly, I was just discussing this topic with a friend the other day. While I am an animal lover–cats, dogs, birds mainly–my view is that the closing of circuses is just one more example of ill-advised progressivism on the march (what I call the “Amy Goodman brigade”). The latter is an uber-leftist and has a radio program on NPR as well as a TV show called “Democracy, NOW!” Let’s just rob children of all that we enjoyed as kids. Even such programs as “The Honeymooners,” still airing on MeTV, and “Seinfeld” (admittedly, one of the most un-PC shows ever) are grist for the progressive mill.

Sorry for the rant, but, while I regard myself as (still) liberal, or left of center perhaps, the extremes of the progressives, as well as the right, sometimes get to me.
 
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That article was good for pointing out that Ringling Bros. does not abuse their animals and were found not guilty when PETA went after them. But, is that the reason the circus is closing?

When I first heard of this it was supposed to be due to shrinking audiences and increase of money needed to continue. Ringling was always very professional. Some others, not so much but if the reasons are rising costs and shrinking revenue, I don’t know if there is any place to really lay blame. It’s a sad loss nonetheless and an end of an era of entertainment. I loved the circus as a child but the clowns scared me big time!
 
Peeps said:
I think this is the proper place in the forum for this article. I found it very touching and troubling. I loved the circus (except for the high wire acts and trapeze acts, ever since I witnessed a woman falling from the trap years ago–can’t watch it since that happened. The woman lived, but was horribly injured).

What do you think? Have any of you worked in a circus or have family connections with circus? Are any of you farmers with livestock? Do any of you breed animals?

The Death Of The Circus. An American Tragedy: "Losing Our Jobs, Our Homes, Our Lives." - Bedlam Farm
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I think entertainment such as Cirque de Soleil is sucking the oxygen from the traditional circuses.
 
Ringling Bros. might have been professional in their handling of the circus animals, but what about the smaller circuses traveling around? Circuses are okay without the animals.
 
I see some flaws in this author’s reasoning, so I’m going to nitpick this. I’ll (try to) be nice about it. It’s inevitable when controversial issues get posted up. 🙂

First of all, neither job provision or the potential loss of jobs justify an industry. If we carry poor logic to its natural conclusion, remember that narcotics, prostitution, pornography, and human trafficking all employ people, too. (And no, I’m not saying that any of those are on the same moral plain as circuses!)
There is no more “wild” or “nature” for the Asian elephants to live, climate change, poaching and human development have destroyed their habitats.
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Inaccurate and incorrect. Two thirds of all Asian elephants continue to live in the wild and in nature.
Circus work and other existing work in Asia was perhaps the best chance for this species to remain alive and among people, with whom they have worked for centuries, sustaining the lives of both.
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So zoos and wildlife preserves aren’t doing their jobs correctly?
The Asian elephants in circuses, like the big carriage horses, have never lived in the wild and could not survive there. They are domesticated animals, they have worked among people for thousands of years.
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Domesticatation is one thing. Forcing 5.5 ton elephants to balance on human chairs and tigers to jump through flaming hoops is quite another. The most I’ll ask my cat to do is a treat-incentivized high-five with this paw.
Speaking for myself, I can’t quite grasp the point at which entertaining and uplifting human spirits – something animals have done since the dawn of time – has become a crime, punishable by jail. Who else is supposed to lift us up and make our hearts sing the way animals do – Twitter? CNN? Facebook? Fox News?

Who will bring the magic back and fill the holes in our hearts?
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This reads like a script from daytime television. I’m saving my tears.

Cirque de Soleil puts on splendid performances and has somehow figured out how to do so without animals.

I’ll stop before I reach my character limit, not to mention lose people’s attention. The bottom line is that as stewards of the Earth, we could be treating God’s creation a lot better than stuffing it into travel trailers and making it perform tricks for us.
 
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Hi. My post contains information about why circuses using animals are a bad thing. Feel free to read it and respond to specific arguments.
 
I’m always sympathetic towards somebody who needs to transition to a new way of life and experiences hardship from it, but the article has a lot of faulty reasoning.

People don’t need circuses to come together in a fun, community-building way. There are many ways to go about this. News and social media has many downsides but that’s all beside the point.

There are many ways to preserve animals and natural habitats that are exceedingly more effective than circuses. Not exterminating elephants for a make-believe cure to an ailment, for example. Smart farming practices, for example. Etc. We have a moral mandate to do this anyway, so things like circuses are more like an excuse than an answer to the problem.

Jobs come and go.
 
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