Sunday, January 9, 2011

FL is home to elephants that miss the circus cut
By LEONARA LaPETER ANTON
St Petersburg Times
POLK CITY, Fla. --
Angelica, the pregnant one, is grabbing the lock of her paddock with her trunk. Fortysomething Sid, the diva, is hanging with Aree, the young one who can't concentrate. A few pens over, Mala is ready to make babies, so she's been put together with Romeo.
These are the Asian elephants who were left behind. The ones who didn't make the Greatest Show on Earth, which concludes its stop in Tampa on Sunday.
Thirty-three of Ringling Bros.' Asian elephants live here, off a two-lane road in Polk County, at the Center for Elephant Conservation. The oldest is 66. The youngest, 8 months.
At the circus inside the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa this weekend, amid the splash of lights, the loud music, the glittery costumed performers, the chosen ones will parade trunk-to-tail through the Big Top.
But here, in the winter-drab fields of middle Florida, are those that didn't quite make it they're too old, too young or too distracted. They are the largest herd of Asian elephants in the western hemisphere.
About 15 years ago, Feld Entertainment, owner of Ringling Bros., bought 200 acres west of Orlando, four miles from Interstate 4. They carved the grasslands into shady outdoor paddocks and built concrete barns with cages.
Today, the facility has become a place where older elephants with arthritic feet retire, where fertile elephants breed, where not-suitable-for-the-circus elephants live out their lives.
The Center for Elephant Conservation is not open to the public. In fact, anyone passing the facility on the road would never know it's there.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/08/2006539/fl-is-home-to-elephants-that-miss.html#ixzz1AXKH4BJA

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