Ringling Bros Elephants Officially Retire After Their Final Performance

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus elephants are now officially retired after their final performance on Sunday at Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

After their 145 years of circus life, the last group of elephants from the circus bid farewell to their fond viewers, and say hello to their new home and join their fellow retired elephants.

After receiving a series of criticism from animal rights groups, the company finally decided to let all their circus elephants stop from performing and enjoy the rest of their lives at the company's Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida.

"They are missing the most important experience, which is freedom in the wild," said a spokesman for the Performing Animal Welfare Society, according to Huffington Post.

In what seemed to be like a very emotional farewell performance, Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson expressed his grief over the girls' separation from the team and gratitude for their more than a century of service and performance.

"That's history tonight there, ladies and gentlemen, true American icons," Iverson said as the show ended.

Audiences from different parts of the city came that night to watch as the last batch of elephants said goodbye to the circus. Sheila Oliver, of East Providence even brought her daughter for her last chance of seeing an elephant perform live in a circus.

But not everyone came to watch. Prior to the show, a group of protesters waited outside in objection to Ringling's animal use, as per The Denver Post.

Ringling's Florida center has been receiving demands from The Humane Society to stop the breeding program on their site. They area also requested to surrender the elephants to accredited sanctuaries having two acres of land. These sanctuaries can be found in Tennessee and California.

Ringling's Center for Elephant Conservation have been called "flat and treeless," by a National Geographic reporter. He found that the elephants are staying inside the cages and some of them are in chains at night to prevent from stealing one another's food. These exercises however have been proven to be unnecessary to elephants and could possibly be making them uncomfortable, as reported by the Associated Press.

Take a glimpse at the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus elephants' final performance through this video.