Animal Tourism: if you can ride it, hug it or pay a fee to get a photo with it, the chances are the animal has been suffering, and is the subject of cruelty. Tiger cubs, monkeys, parrots and other animals are used for photo opportunities. They are constantly forced to interact with the public for hours on end, and when not working are in cramped barren cages.
Traditional donkey rides in Britain can be regulated. They are not allowed to carry holiday makers over 8 stones, and are given an hour’s break, and one day off a week to rest but animals abroad are often overworked and not always afforded the same care. Always match your size with the animal, pay a fair price, one person per animal and check for hidden sores, wounds or prominent bones. Kinder still, avoid it altogether.
Trekking through the jungle atop an elephant, or frolicking through the waves on the back of a dolphin can seem like the perfect adventure. Unfortunately for so many animals forced into the tourist industry, the experience is quite the opposite. Elephants will always be wild animals with natural instincts and behaviours. In order to be ridden, they need to be tamed first. Baby elephants are cruelly taken from their mothers at just a few months old. Their spirits are broken for training, to give rides and perform for tourists.
They are restrained with ropes and chains and kept in close confinement. The elephant can only move when commanded and has to accept a person riding on their neck. Severe pain is often inflicted with whips. They suffer from loneliness and isolation from other elephants with whom they would naturally form bonds. And are often deprived of food and water, and suffer from stress and exhaustion due to overwork for sometimes decades. Some show signs of abnormal behaviour. Accepting elephant rides is perpetuating their suffering.
‘Swim- with- dolphins’ programmes have become increasingly popular, but it doesn’t enhance the life of the animals, who are often kept in small inadequate pools. It isn’t their natural existence. They are ill-suited to confinement. Many facilities operate almost continuously, giving them little respite from the constant flow of excited visitors. Dolphins are kept constantly hungry as part of their training, to ensure they perform. In the wild they do not jump through hoops, eat dead fish, wave, kiss or drag people through the water with their fins. This is forced on them in captivity.
Most dolphins are captured from the wild. This not only affects them, but the whole pod. Every tourist has the power to reduce animal affliction, by following simple guidelines and informing concerns to authorities and local tour operators. This will encourage a needed change in poor animal practice. Notice if there is water and food available for the animals. Are they confined amid filth or exhibiting signs of injury or illness? Take photographs and note the date, time and location. Turn your information over to local contacts. Be an ethical traveller. Use WorldAnimal.net to obtain contact information for local shelters and animal groups in the area where you are travelling.
Zoo Slaughter: live domestic pets as well as cows and chickens are fed to the lions and tigers for entertainment to visitors at Chinese Zoos. Zoo officials encourage guests to buy domestic animals on the premises and feed them to the carnivores through special vending flaps fitted on tourist buses, allowing individuals to throw chickens and other fully conscious animals to waiting predators.
Circuses: some people think it is okay to see animals do tricks and that they enjoy performing. However, animals are forced and demeaned into doing this. It isn’t a natural life for them and trainers tend to use two methods to train the animals, punishment or deprivation. Wild animals do not voluntarily jump through rings of fire, balance a ball, stand on their heads or on their front legs. When the circus is travelling, sometimes between continents, animals are kept in cramped cages or trailers and not adequately exercised or fed.
Often they live out their whole lives deprived of freedom, and in most cases, only come out of captivity when it is time to entertain the public. They get lonely, and want to spend time with other animals like themselves. Avoid circuses which use animals. Public demand for animal-free circuses are growing. Inform friends, family and public members. Onekind at www.onekind.org is calling for the use of wild animals in circuses to be banned and are speaking out in defence of the welfare of all captive wild animals in Scotland, from pandas to polar bears. Hopefully, we are now on the brink of that.
Animal Actors: are used for advertising on television or in the film industry. Some are taken away from their parents as infants. They can be exposed to bright lights and loud noises. Training, boredom and frustration in trying to cope with these unnatural conditions, often result in animals developing abnormal behaviours. Their needs and desires are neglected and denied and wild animals can also pose a danger to the crew.
Chimpanzees for example can live up to 60 years of age, but they stop being useful after a few years old, because they are no longer amenable to discipline. What happens to them after that? They may end up in a zoo. Today with animatronics, animation and computerised –generated imagery, it’s not necessary. If we know that in order to entertain us, these animals suffer, we can write letters to producers or contribute to organisations that confront issues.
Aquarium and Marine Parks: such as Sea World are part of a billion dollar industry, built on animal suffering. Countless marine animals have been taken from their ocean homes. In the wild dolphins live in large groups and each day may swim in straight lines for 100 miles in the open seas. In captivity these sociable, intelligent, playful animals are separated from their pod and confined to swimming in a circle around a tank, pool or other artificial habitat which denies them the opportunity to engage in their natural behaviours.
This is traumatic, since they communicate through sonar, but in pools the reverberations bounce off the walls. Wild orcas can live for decades but the median age in captivity is 9 years. Some marine parks force animals to perform meaningless tricks. The last dolphinarium in the UK closed more than 20 years ago. Don’t support marine parks and aquariums that keep animals in captivity. Support legislation that prohibits this.
Zoos: is this evidence of commerce or conservation? Humans are fascinated by wild animals. Are Zoos sanctuaries of education and entertainment or unnecessary prisons? Some might argue that zoos play an important role in conservation and research, whilst others counter that they teach people it is acceptable to interfere with animals and keep them locked up where they are bored, cramped, lonely, deprived of all control over their lives.
Even the best artificial environments can’t replicate space, diversity and freedom that animals have in their natural habitat, and many animals find it difficult to adjust to this. Elephants for example walk up to 30 miles per day. It would be better to protect elephants where they live to ensure they never become extinct. It has been documented that the cost of keeping elephants in zoos is 50 times more expensive than protecting equivalent numbers in the wild. Capturing animals splits up families.
Zoos can cause animals to become stressed or mentally ill. Some animals exhibit obsessive, abnormal and repetitive behaviour. Being continually stared at, having cameras flashed in their faces or children banging on the windows of their enclosures can’t be much fun. The money spent on tickets pays for animals to be imprisoned, not rescued and rehabilitated. People can watch documentaries, learn about them on the internet, observe them in their own natural homes, or visit a wildlife rescue centre instead.
Camels are famously referred to as ‘ships of the desert’. Tony Sargent (1996) quoted the following humour in his book by describing a conversation between a father camel and his son. His son asked him, “Why do we have humps on our backs?” His father answered, “Well, they store food when travelling through the desert.” “Why do we have long eyelashes?” “To stop sand blowing in our eyes”. ”Why are our toes linked by pads?” “To stop us sinking in the ground.” The son then asked, “What are we doing in London Zoo?”.
Dancing bears: young sloth bear cubs are captured from the wild, and trained to dance, to entertain audiences in conditions of unimaginable cruelty. They are forced on to hot metal sheets and in order to escape the pain, the bears alternate lifting up one paw and then another while music is played. This process is repeated until they automatically begin to raise their paws to ‘dance’ in fear of the pain, even when there are no metal sheets. Rings are inserted through their nose and jaws (no anaesthetic). Chains are attached to the reigns, so trainers can control them with only a slight tug on the chain. The bears claws are removed as is their teeth, or broken, so they can’t injure the trainer. Inadequate diet causes serious health issues. Born Free at http://www.bornfree.org.uk is taking action and helps care for ex-dancing bears.
Bull fighting: is held in Mexico, France, Portugal and Spain. It is hard to believe, that thousands of people still routinely gather to watch and cheer the slow torture of bulls. This is probably the most barbaric exploitation of animals that is legally practiced. Interest has declined, but unfortunately there are still over 1,200 government funded bull-ranches and dozens of state-sponsored bull fighting schools in Spain. The bull is released into a bullring and taunted by a matador with a cape. It is then approached by picadors (men on horses) who drive lances into the bull’s back and neck muscles, impairing the bull’s ability to lift his head.
Then the banderilleros (men on foot ) come and proceed to distract and goad the bull and stab the animal with brightly coloured darts called banderillas. They run the bull in more circles until it is weakened from injuries and exhaustion and stops chasing. The matador then appears using his cape and sword to provoke the animal and tries to deliver the death blow with his sword. It will either die or be slaughtered afterwards if it survives. A tradition of tragedy. You can express your outrage to organisations that confront this and sign petitions. Write to the Spanish, Mexican and French embassies (addresses in full on PETA’s website).
Bull fiestas: traditional festivals in Spain and some other countries, have often included a bull fight or bull run as part of the ‘celebration.’ In other cases the infamous ‘fire festivals’ involve tar being smeared on a bulls’ horns which are then set on fire. The poor animal runs frantically through the streets with flames burning his back and sparks showering his eyes surrounded by cheering crowds in the name of entertainment. This is a barbaric ritual. Cows and calves are also sometimes abused.
Christians Caring For Gods Creatures 