The company announced it would phase out the use of elephants in the “best interest” of the animals and their customers.

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, one of biggest circus companies in the United States, announced that it would stop using elephants in its shows by 2018.

Ringling Bros. circus handler Joey Frisco speaks to an Asian elephant in Boston in 2013.

Elise Amendola / AP

In Thursday's news release, Feld Entertainment, Ringling's corporate parent, stated that 13 elephants currently traveling with three circus units would be relocated to the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant for Conservation in Florida by 2018. There they would join the rest of the company's herd of 42 elephants.

Amidst growing public concern of the treatment of its famous Asian elephants, the company said the decision was made in the "best interest" of their animals and customers.

The circus in Washington D.C.

Alex Brandon / AP

Animal rights activists have long protested the circus's alleged mistreatment of elephants and have been frustrated with the lack of action taken by the US. Department of Agriculture (USDA) against the company.

A 2011 Mother Jones story detailed the horrific abuses allegedly suffered by around 50 Asian elephants used by the company.

From Mother Jones:

But a yearlong Mother Jones investigation shows that Ringling elephants spend most of their long lives either in chains or on trains, under constant threat of the bullhook, or ankus—the menacing tool used to control elephants.

They are lame from balancing their 8,000-pound frames on tiny tubs and from being confined in cramped spaces, sometimes for days at a time. They are afflicted with tuberculosis and herpes, potentially deadly diseases rare in the wild and linked to captivity.

Barack, a calf born on the eve of the president's inauguration, had to leave the tour in February for emergency treatment of herpes—the second time in a year.

Since Kenny's death, 3 more of the 23 baby elephants born in Ringling's vaunted breeding program have died, all under disturbing circumstances that weren't fully revealed to the public.

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