A baby elephant with light brown coat in a forested area at daytime. 3:22
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Retired circus elephants get room to roam

The twelve elephants were trained to perform for Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Now their days are for wandering and wading at White Oak Conservation in Florida. more

Change came slowly. After years of protests from animal rights and wildlife groups, Ringling Bros decided to take elephants out of its shows. It was good news with a catch. The elephants were retired, and they had nowhere to go.

The team at White Oak Conservation, in Nassau County, made a plan to give every one of them a life as close to wild as it could be. A plan like that needs land, and a lot of it.

Now the elephants have it. There is room to walk, water to bathe in and food to eat, with animal care experts working right there on the grounds. They didn't show up as strangers, either. They already knew each other and had worked out their own order, so they came in as a herd.

A baby elephant with light brown coat in a forested area at daytime. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
The twelve elephants were trained to perform for Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

No more riding and no more tricks. Plenty of people cheering the move said this is how every elephant ought to live.

The plan makes room for more than 20 other elephants to follow, with more land being readied for a bigger herd. For the first twelve, the hard part is over. Their only job now is to be elephants.

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