Circus lionized for cutting animal acts will bring them back

A Massachusetts circus is under fire for bringing back animal acts a year after earning praise from animal rights groups for dropping them. (Photo: MELHA Shrine Circus/Facebook)

BOSTON—A Massachusetts circus is under fire for bringing back animal acts a year after earning praise from animal rights groups for dropping them.

The Melha Shrine Circus says performing elephants, tigers and dogs will return in May because that’s what people want.

The charitable circus says attendance dropped last year without the animals, and for the first time in its 63-year history, the circus lost money.

Sheryl Becker is the daughter of a Shriner and an animal rights activist who started an online petition to get the circus to drop animal acts. She says the animals often are mistreated.

But the circus says it only hires animal acts that treat their animals properly.