Animal Cruelty & Tourism: The Silent Victims

As a tourist holidaying to a foreign destination, we seek new sights and experiences to enhance our travels. Many travel operators provide opportunities to ride, play and pet exotic animal and watch them perform in shows. It is important to remember that such experiences are generally exploitative and can have an incredibly harmful impact on the animal.

The Silent Victims of Animal Tourism

Trekking through the dense jungles of Asia on the back of an elephant may be on your bucket list, but these highly intelligent, family-oriented animals are deprived of the complex social networks and sensory stimulation that they would have in the wild and are exploited for profit. Numerous animals including tigers, bears, monkeys and sea mammals join the long list of animals being exploited for tourism. With desolate enclosures, little stimulation, and torturous -bordering on criminal - training methods, thousands of animals suffer immensely at the hands of their trainers. In captivity, wild animals have inherent natural behaviours that aren’t conducive to living in a barren concrete cell. Tourists being mauled by tigers and trampled by elephants are commonly flooding the media, bringing to light how necessary it is to stop cruel animal tourism.

Seeing a wild animal in its natural habitat can be a magnificent experience and there are ethical avenues to facilitate this. Knowledge is power, and with a quick browse online you can equip yourself with the right information about ethical programs available at your next destination. Visiting the right places won’t only keep your conscience at ease; it will help animals achieve a greater level of freedom and quality of life by driving down unethical tourism.

Cruelty Masquerading as Culture

Running with the bulls in Pamplona, the Gadhimai "slaughter" festival in Nepal, the Tlacotalpan bull torture festival in Mexico and the Yulin dog meat festival in Guangxi are all promoted as global “cultural” events. Tourists flock to these events, excusing their inherent cruelty with notions of 'culture' and 'tradition'. Cultural heritage and tradition are important aspects of a nation's identity, however, consciously participating in activities that promote animal torture is simply unacceptable. It is time to end torture masquerading as culture.

In today’s progressive society, we find human torture unacceptable and abhorrent when instigated in the name of rituals and tradition. So why is animal torture acceptable? The detriments of animal misery and suffering aren’t outweighed by any perceived positives promoted by animal festival promoters and cultural tradition.

Recognising Animal Cruelty

Horse-drawn carriages, donkey rides, dolphin swims and  tiger-petting are often perceived as harmless tourist attractions, however, most of these animals are deprived of their basic needs, and often are beaten and/or tortured into submission. Working long hours, with inadequate access to water and food; these animals live a monotonous and cruel existence merely to satisfy humanity’s desire for entertainment.

The Ethical Tourist Guide

For a comprehensive list of animal activities to avoid, click here.