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Oh, thank you -- this was a treat.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the Cirque du Soliel shows that have come my way, but Ringling Brothers was a different style.  I was so sorry to see them close their doors -- perhaps if they'd been less dependent on their animal acts they might have been able to evolve their programming and keep their companies alive.

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All their animal acts were functional save for the elephants, who were retired because unexpected laws kept popping up in individual cities designed to keep the show from going on although Ringling Bros. was consistently successful in the courts. Without the elephants it ain't no circus, at least from the public perspective, apparently, so that proved to be the end. Maybe their time had passed in any case.

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I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "functional" -- the big cat shows were pretty controversial as well. 

 

I do think that the human acts could have carried the show, but as you say, without the elephants people seemed to think it wasn't the circus.

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1 hour ago, sandik said:

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "functional" -- the big cat shows were pretty controversial as well. 

 

I do think that the human acts could have carried the show, but as you say, without the elephants people seemed to think it wasn't the circus.

 

By functional I meant the other animal acts were functioning as part of the show at the time of the company's demise. It was thought that the circus could continue without the elephants, but the decline in ticket sales after they were gone was unexpectedly steep, and the show could not go on, as it were.

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Just now, dirac said:

 

By functional I meant the other animal acts were functioning as part of the show at the time of the company's demise. It was thought that the circus could continue without the elephants, but the decline in ticket sales after they were gone was unexpectedly steep, and the show could not go on, as it were.

 

Somewhere a grad student in arts management is going to write a study of how Ringling Bros. rose and fell, and I hope someone sends me a copy.  I know that they didn't perform in Seattle once the elephant controversy really got going -- they would up in a slightly smaller city to the north, and I think that hurt their sales.  I didn't follow the story very closely, but I remember that pattern being played out in other communities. 

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The backlash against using trained circus animals relates to all the troubles the Sea World franchise has had with the Orca whales. So much bad publicity is causing even the "educational" approach (with minimal entertainment 'performances') to lose money. Which is actually a bad thing -  a certain amount of in-person interaction with animals is important for humans (and maybe the more the better).

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The philosophy behind zoos and aquaria has been changing so radically during the last 50 years.  I turned 61 earlier in the month, and I remember our local zoo as a very traditional "animals behind bars" facility.  They starting shifting to a habitat model in the 1970s, and have done some excellent work, but it's still an ongoing process.  And when I was a small girl, the owner of a local aquarium had one of the first orcas in captivity (although back then we all called them killer whales).  You could go under the waterline in a plexiglass room and watch him feed the orca -- it was thrilling.

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2 hours ago, sandik said:

The philosophy behind zoos and aquaria has been changing so radically during the last 50 years.  I turned 61 earlier in the month, and I remember our local zoo as a very traditional "animals behind bars" facility.  They starting shifting to a habitat model in the 1970s, and have done some excellent work, but it's still an ongoing process.  And when I was a small girl, the owner of a local aquarium had one of the first orcas in captivity (although back then we all called them killer whales).  You could go under the waterline in a plexiglass room and watch him feed the orca -- it was thrilling.

 

I've lived in two places that showcase the change in approach to zoos: San Francisco and San Diego. The San Francisco zoo (which has improved over the years) was once of those "animals behind bars" places that, additionally, was often shrouded in cold fog, so it was not a great habitat for African and tropical animals. It just felt sad in the old days - a day at the zoo left me feeling depressed, not inspired. The San Diego Zoo, on the other hand, has always been at the forefront of zoo design and technological development. But the real improvement came with the creation of the sister-park, the San Diego Wild Animal Park (now called the Safari Park), where the animals are able to roam about on much larger tracks of land (though the environment is still very much under the control of humans, and not left to Mother Nature).

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