From Chic Silber #4

Not a happy new year story Los Angeles is poised to ban elephants from performing in circuses within its city limits, If the City Council adopts the ban early next year, Ringling Brothers, will be barred from the nation’s second-largest city unless its owners agree to abandon one of the show’s signature acts. The movement to ban elephant acts, which had until recently made little progress in this country, may now have found a foothold in Southern California. Six Southern California cities already ban circus elephants, more than in any other state. In addition, last year, the Santa Ana Zoo and the Orange County Fair stopped offering elephant rides. Elephants had been trained to work with humans for thousands of years before they became fixtures in circuses (just ask Hannibal). Intelligent and normally docile, they can learn to perform many tricks like headstands and walking upright for wide eyed children and adults alike. But pressure on circuses to drop wild animal acts has grown, as activists have waged a campaign to convince the public that it is cruel to haul animals back and forth across the country to perform.