Yes, release them back into the wild where they will be promptly slaughtered.A couple of additional facts that I did not include in the excerpt:
- Annual attendance at Ringling's circuses is more than 10 million, and audience surveys rate elephants as by far the favorite attraction.
- Of Ringling's 55 elephants, up to 20 are touring at any one time in the three circus units. Most of the others live at Ringling's Center for Elephant Conservation, a $5 million, 200-acre facility in central Florida that doubles as retirement home and breeding center.
It would seem they have a better life at the breeding facility than on the Asian subcontinent where competition for land between man and elephants ends up with the elephant as the loser.