Big Tops' Big Swap
Welcome to What Could Go Right?, where we're learning about Wikipedia sandwiches.
What Could Go Right? is a free weekly newsletter from The Progress Network written by our executive director, Emma Varvaloucas. In addition to this newsletter, which collects substantive progress news from around the world, The Progress Network is also home to the anti-apocalypse conversational podcast also called What Could Go Right?.
In late July, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture updated their rules governing performances that use captive wild animals.?The new rules stipulate that such shows must display only natural behavior of the animals, have educational value, and promote an “emotional connection” between humans and animals. Businesses must get the content of their animal shows approved by the government before running them.
Taiwan’s recent move is part of a larger trend away from using animals for entertainment.?
There has been a sea change in Europe around the legality of performing animals in circuses, for instance. In Europe, Greece was first to pass a general ban on the use of all animals in circuses and live performances in 2012. According to the animal rights group Four Paws, there are now 34 countries on the continent that have implemented or will soon implement restrictions on the use of wild animals, inside or outside of the circus. Many of these laws are new. Spain prohibited the use of wild animals in circuses in 2023, Portugal implemented a general ban on the use of all wild animals this year, and a general ban will also go into effect in France in 2028.
Globally, 17 other countries also have bans in place, many of them in Central or South America, although Singapore, Taiwan, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, and India all do as well. Bolivia was the first country in the world to ban all animals, not just wild ones, in circuses in 2009.
Places where circuses are still legal continue to deal with escaped wild animals, like this lion in Rome, Italy in 2023 (watch the video through that link for an authentic “Mama mia!” Italian reaction) or the elephant below in Butte, Montana, which in April of this year wandered around town for 20 minutes. The elephant, named Viola, ran away after being frightened by a truck backfiring nearby during her bathtime.
In the United States, New Jersey was the first state to ban the use of wild animals in traveling shows in 2018, followed by Hawaii just a week later. There are now ten states—Maryland became the tenth in May of this year—as well as hundreds of individual localities that outlaw them. Public sentiment, especially in younger generations, has kept apace. A 2019 Monmouth University poll found that a majority of Americans, 54 percent, would back a national law prohibiting the use of wild animals in circuses. The support is 11 points stronger among adults under the age of 35.
Such attitudes would explain Americans’ dwindling interest in the circus in general. As someone who has fond memories of going to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a child, I was surprised to learn that they had closed in 2017, due to animal abuse allegations as well as declining ticket sales. They reopened in 2023 with only human performers.
Those who support wild animals in the circus often answer stories of abuse with the counterpoint of how much most circus handlers love their animals. But it’s hard to escape the fact that circuses and animal shows are in service of our entertainment, not the animals’ well-being. Their behavior in them is unnatural. And conservation concerns around certain species would be much better addressed by a zoo or sanctuary. There are also plenty of shows for young kids that can easily replace the circus—a friend’s kids recently gave Frozen on ice rave reviews.
Outside of circuses, other practices that use animals for sport have also gone out of fashion, at least by the letter of the law. Dog racing, for example, is legal in only 10 countries, and bullfighting in only 8, according to the German news outlet DW. More controversially, Costa Rica announced in June of this year that it would close its two public zoos, with the animals either sent to a sanctuary or reintroduced into the wild.?
That is likely a step too far for most—Costa Rica is the only country to have decided to close its zoos, and from what I could find, I don’t see signs of interest in doing so anywhere else. But while humans have certainly wreaked destruction on animals and their habitats, and continue to do so today, the level of concern around their welfare is also distinctly on the rise.?
One town in Tennessee illustrates this attitudinal reversal well. Erwin is the infamous location of the hanging of “Murderous Mary,” a circus elephant who killed her handler in the early 20th century after he prodded or struck (it's unclear which) her with a metal hook. The public insisted the elephant be put down, but couldn’t figure out how to do it. They eventually hanged her from a railyard crane.
One hundred years later, Erwin is on a journey of redemption. They run an annual elephant-themed arts festival, and partner with a nearby elephant sanctuary. They no longer want to be remembered as the site of animal cruelty.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this one. Do you think animal-based entertainment should be illegal everywhere?
—Emma Varvaloucas
By the Numbers
$268M: The amount of federal funding that will go to Native American communities for an anti-overdose research program led by the communities themselves. Young Native Americans have been hit particularly hard by the opioid crisis.
192K: The number of publicly available charging ports for electric vehicles in the US, double the number since President Joe Biden took office. About 1,000 new public chargers are being added every week.
+40: The percentage of global electricity generation that came from zero-carbon technologies in 2023, for the first time. Fossil fuels still produced 57% of global electricity, however. (WSJ $)
Quick Hits
???The Philippines has limited malaria transmission to just one region in the country, going from over 48,000 cases in 2003 to just over 6,000 ten years later. The Telegraph has a great insider look into the work going into eliminating malaria in the country completely, through efforts in remote indigenous communities where transmission still occurs.?
???Oregon’s ban on ghost guns—unserialized guns that are sold as parts—and guns that don’t trigger metal detectors went into effect last weekend after a legal challenge to the regulation was denied by a federal judge. The country’s biggest ghost gun manufacturer has shut down due to an unmanageable number of lawsuits, although the closure may be temporary.?
???Human blood stem cells have been made in a laboratory for the first time. Blood stem cells can be lost during the course of treatment for various cancers, necessitating stem cell transplants; if this new method can work in humans, the stem cells could be produced from the actual patient.
???The northern bald ibis, nearly extinct since the 17th century, has been revived in Europe. The problem is, there are no wild-born elders to teach the young birds their migration patterns. So, a team of conservationists stepped in. The video of the birds following their “foster parents” in an ultralight aircraft is a must-see.
???US-based researchers have found that China has reduced air pollution by 41 percent since 2013. The average Chinese citizen can expect to live two years longer, if these changes are sustained.
???Like the AI that is helping to decipher scrolls buried under Vesuvius’ eruption, so too is the technology speeding up the translation process of The Epic of Gilgamesh, a 4,000-year-old epic poem that still has missing sections.
???Grid-scale storage stores energy when technologies like wind or solar produce it in excess, to be used at a time when it is needed. Not enough of it has been built, but?lately, progress has been?advancing quickly. Solid-state battery technology, too, is advancing, which may mean electric vehicles with a 600-mile range as early as 2027.
???Donating a kidney has always been low-risk, but since the development of laparoscopic surgery, which is minimally invasive, kidney donation has become even safer: a new study found that the mortality rate has dropped to .9 per 10,000 people, down from 3 per 10,000 in the 1990s.?
???For the first time, several companies are now testing menstrual blood’s ability to replace “a number of expensive or inconvenient diagnostic tests,” such as the one for the reproductive disease endometriosis, which requires surgery to diagnose. (The New Yorker $)
???There has been a surge of private sector investment in US manufacturing, nearly doubling since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. Nearly 127,000 new jobs have also been created.
???What we’re watching:?What to do when major grocery chains close up shop in your city? Open a grocery store of your own. The city government of Chicago is currently considering whether they’ll do just that.
???Editor’s?pick:?We recommend a?pair of Jacobin essays: the first, which makes the argument that the climate movement is wasting its energies by focusing on climate disinformation, and the second, a rebuttal.?
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