Reddit reviews Clownland

Really, it's just the truth vs. propaganda. I'm not an expert, but here's what I understand about it all:

There are a lot of folks out there that are convinced that the animals are mistreated, mostly due to PETA, the ASPCA, and a host of other animal "rights" organizations. There's a history of litigation between the two companies, and they have always been settled in Ringling's favor.

In 2015, the Humane Society paid Ringling $15,000,000 in a settlement for damages incurred by frivolous lawsuits and testimonies against the company that were outright falsified. That settlement, combined with another one in 2012, means that Ringling was awarded $25,000,000 by the courts from these animal "rights" groups. (Source.)

Despite that, though, Ringling pulled its elephants from the shows in 2015 - protesters at your shows look bad, drive down ticket sales, and all that. A number of cities bowed down to the protesters, too, and banned animal performances within their jurisdictions.

After Ringling pulled the elephants from the shows, ticket sales started to really dry up. Turns out, for as many people hate the idea of animals performing, folks still like to go see the guys do their thing. This article is from a current musician on one of their units and sums it up well.

This all has some echo of the recent (2015) legislation in Mexico, where animal performance in circus was banned at the federal level almost overnight. Families had to take their animals to shelters or put them down themselves in order to escape fines of ~$300,000 (source.)

Let that sink in for a second... these animals - whose lineage had been literal parts of these family shows since the 1800s... circus families who had been a part of the Mexican culture since the 1800s... had to either take them to a shelter or kill them, or face a fine that would end their business, which had been in their family for 125 years. Uh... sound familiar? The story of Atayde is very similar to what's happened to Ringling (uh, minus the slaughter thing. Maybe.)

The kicker there is that animal rights groups don't seem to understand how much it costs to keep these animals alive. You're talking hundreds of dollars per day. There are stories about animal rights groups in Australia protesting about elephants at a traditional circus there, got the government to send vets from the state zoo on a surprise audit, and the response was "...are you guys kidding? These elephants are in way better condition than the ones in the zoo! It'd be insane to take them away from the circus." (Paraphrasing a quote from a book called "Clownland" by Judith Lanigan. I'd quote it directly, but don't have my copy on tour with me.) When you're selling tickets to a show, you can afford to treat your animals right. When they're dropped off at a conservation center someplace, they don't always have the overhead to take care of them... so they do the "humane" thing and put them down.

I've only worked in shows with animals a handful of times - not big shows like Ringling, but with freelance trained pony, parrot, and dog artists. The love these trainers have for their animals is really, really incredible. I'm not saying that abuse doesn't ever happen, but that seems to me to be the exception, not the rule. I've never met a former Ringling worker who saw any kind of abuse - hell, the company traveled with vets, but not physios. Animals before people.

So, uh... that's the long answer to the question. Not trying to open up a can of worms or anything... I'm sure we can all agree that the ~800 people that will lose their jobs from this company closing - regardless of whether or not you believe it was the direct result of animal rights groups' misinformation - is not a happy thing.