Whirling hoops, tumbling acrobats and animals performing amazing tricks, it's an annual and enjoyable site every year at Michigan State University for a score of families.

But that experience will be just a memory this year says Ed Purchis of the Caravan Youth Center.

"The trustees have made the decision, there will be no circus with animals in 2009 at the Breslin Center." Purchis says.

Mitch Goldsmith is the Vice President of "Students Promoting Animal Rights," the same person who helped lead a protest last April, and the man who says he helped get the circus canceled based on what he saw at last year's event.

"We saw animals chained so that they were immobile, under a tent in freezing weather. We saw them bobbing their heads and shaking which is characteristic of animals in distress," Goldsmith says.

And that distress is something Goldsmith says the Caravan Center knew about, Bob Helmic of the Youth Center says that's untrue.

"For the people who own those animals, those animals are their lively hood, so they're not going to abuse those animals," Helmic says.

Helmic also says that those animals are the reason his organization has had such a success every year, a success that's been going since 1981 and a success that has raised over a million dollars for charities in town. Something that doesn't have to end says Goldsmith.

"We presented them with the name and contact information of several animal-free circuses who had agreed to come to Michigan State University and they refused, so obviously their concern is not with helping children," Goldsmith says.

Regardless of who's right or wrong, the fact is the show won't go on this year.