SeaWorld announces end to orca breeding

Hold on. Let's not get carried away by bringing logic into this.

And now it seems that Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey circus has retired their elephants from the show, with animal activists vowing to not give up until all animals are released.
What's a circus without animals? (Wait, I know,...Cirque du Soleil...)

But it's true, if the activists had their way all animals would immediately run free, regardless of the impact that might have on us, the environment, or the animals themselves. And that includes your pet dogs, cats, fish, and bunnies. (I know my two dogs wouldn't last a minute out there in the hood, they'd be some of the first victims) But they don't care, the theory is that nature took care of itself for umpteen billions of years and it can today. If freeing Willy causes him to die then so be it. There will be more. Or not. Whatever happens is up to nature and it's course.

This is here to stay and over time we'll see even more changes. I'm quite close to someone in the agriculture industry and they're currently bending over backwards to insure housing and production standards meet societal expectations, while at the same time continuing to put eggs on our plates every morning. It's a tough balance to maintain as public opinion changes.

It would be interesting to look forward another hundred and fifty years to see if people look back and laugh at the time when animals were held captive for edutainment purposes. You know, much like we currently disdain archaic show business practices like making horses do high dives and stuff like that.

From what I have seen, the circus elephants are being retired to sanctuaries. They aren't being released on the streets or even in the wild. I understand that breeding occurs at those sanctuaries. The animal rights folks want them taken to non-breeding sanctuaries.

Article LG posted says that Peta wants the orcas retired to seaside sanctuaries. Not sure exactly what that would mean or if it would work but that doesn't sound like releasing them into the wild and hoping the survive.

Interesting that in relatively short order, two incredibly iconic animal acts are being retired. Both SeaWorld and Ringling Brothers will continue to have other animal acts. Presumably animal rights folks view it as a start? Other places use elephants in shows. But none have the notoriety of RB. There is a marine animal park at Niagara Falls? Never heard of it. Though I do regularly see SeaWorld ads on national TV.

Feld announced the retirement of the elephants quite a while ago. It didn't stop the protestors from hanging out around the arena when they had their stop here in Orlando a few months ago. The people at Feld Entertainment are also good people, and I find allegations of mistreatment to be ridiculous. (Disclaimer: I did some work for them through my current employer.) There was a report on NBC News last week with an interview that indicated they're dropping the elephant component of the show mostly because of the many local ordinances that may prohibit the elephants. With that arrangement, they said, they simply can't account for every local law and still run a show.