Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, with its live animal acts, announced its imminent shutdown last week, but Saanich and Victoria beat them by decades.
Feld Entertainment, owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, said in a statement that declining ticket sales and high costs were the reason for its end. The circus, dating back 146 years, will put on about 30 more shows before its finale in May.
The circus also acknowledged ticket sales have been in decline since it phased out elephant acts last year. But it still features lions, tigers, camels, donkeys, alpacas, kangaroos and llamas. All animals will be retired to a conservation centre in Florida.
Saanich and Victoria both passed bylaws in 1991 banning live-animal acts for entertainment, including in circuses and rodeos. Colwood amended its animal-control bylaw last year to forbid live-animal entertainment.
Colwood animal activist Melissa de Meulles, who has long opposed using animals in entertainment, said the end of the famous circus is good news.
“It’s 2017,” de Meulles said.
“There are all kinds of ways we can entertain ourselves that [don’t] require taking animals and using them in ways they are not naturally inclined.”
The Colwood mother of three said she was raised near the Luxton Fairgrounds in Langford, which staged a rodeo for 39 years until it ended after 2014.
When she learned how the animals were treated in the rodeo, she organized the opposition group Victoria Citizens Against Rodeo Events.
De Meulles said she was raised to be compassionate toward people and animals, and she finds it inhumane to use animals for entertainment.
“Animals want to be in their natural environment and to move in natural ways,” she said.
“They don’t want to jump through hoops, they don’t want to ride tricycles, they don’t want to perform tricks just so humans can have a good laugh,” she said.
Colwood Mayor Carol Hamilton said the move by the city arose initially from a general tidying of its bylaws.
She said the new rule won’t stop people from holding cat shows or local kids from staging events such as small-pet exhibitions.
