(In the interest of full disclosure, I did a short contract through work for Feld Entertainment, the parent company of the Ringling Bros. Circus. I had no contact with anyone who worked directly on the show. I also worked as a contract employee for a year at SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment at the corporate level, and naturally I had exposure to many parts of the enterprise. While this doesn't form the basis of my opinion, it certainly contributes to it.)
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was in town this weekend, so I thought it would be fun to see the show with my little family. I imagine the last time I saw it was probably more than 30 years ago, as I was pretty young. What we did see appeared to be pretty much the same show from my childhood, with the globe of steel, the elephants, the lions and tigers, the fire jugglers, the people loading up on bicycles, etc. Unfortunately, Simon just wasn't that into it, and after falling into the row in front of us, we bailed at the intermission. Kind of sad we missed the trapeze folks, but it is what it is. I'm 0 for 2 on arena events with him.
The circus has been in the news lately because they're going to retire the elephants from the show about 18 months sooner than they originally announced. They're done in May. Naturally, there were people outside protesting, with signs about "slavery" and mistreatment and such. As you would also expect, they weren't changing any minds about people coming to see the show (and I happen to find the use of "slavery" offensive because it trivializes the greatest civil rights travesty in our history).
Here's the problem with the activists that protest the circus and SeaWorld: They confuse the moral issues of keeping animals in captivity with allegations of mistreatment. Rather, they back up the former with the latter, because naturally they can evoke more of an emotional response. In the case of SeaWorld, any allegations brought up by Blackfish, a propaganda film, not a documentary, have been pretty thoroughly discredited. As for the circus, the ASPCA ended up paying out more than $9 million to the circus owners for their false allegations about the treatment of the elephants.
So once you take treatment out of the conversation, you're left with the moral argument about whether or not the animals should be held captive, with the additional nuance about whether or not it's OK to do so for profit. It's the nuance about profit that a lot of people express concern. Animals have been captive for profit motives for all of human history, sometimes to do work for us, and most often because we eat them. No one protests grocery stores or restaurants. Or the Amish, who still use horses for farm work. Perhaps there is something about the entertainment angle that people take issue with.
I'll be honest, I understand the argument against captive animals performing. I'm just not sure that equate it with something nefarious going on. They get extraordinary medical care, consistent diets and zero threat from predators. I haven't met the people caring for the circus animals, but I have met those that care for SeaWorld's and they are amazing people. I had a chance to do a backstage tour at Disney's Animal Kingdom as well, and they're equally committed to the animals. In fact, both theme park organizations here in Florida are deeply involved in rescue scenarios ranging from turtles to foxes to manatees. They're the only entities qualified or well funded enough to do this work.
When you take away the question of whether or not they're well cared for, I'm even less inclined to take the side of activists. I'm more inclined to look at the role of conservation in the bigger picture, because it can only occur in one of two ways: With government or with corporations. Conservation has never really been a something a non-profit can achieve on a large scale, so while it might be an inconvenient truth, corporations are better able to act on those efforts. As someone who grew up near a SeaWorld park (the one that used to exist in Ohio), I would go as far as to say that "save the whales" wouldn't even be a thing were it not for SeaWorld. There's a lot of irony in that.
A former coworker of mine really let me have it for taking the side of zoos and aquariums in an online discussion. He made it very personal, suggesting that I simply had not evolved. Quite the contrary, I think this is yet another issue where taking an extreme, one-sided view is intellectually dishonest and does not land anyone in a land of moral truth. Even if you believe that it comes at the "expense" of animals in captivity, I think it's a reasonable trade for the conservation and awareness that comes with it.
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