- From dolphin shows and elephant rides, to feeding tiger cubs
and wrestling with crocodiles, animal tourism is big business for the travel industry.
But when you book an excursion, it can be difficult to know which ones are ethical
and which ones are inflicting cruelty on animals.
In 2013, the Association of British Travel Agents published its global welfare guidance for animals
and tourism in an attempt to phase out bad practise in the industry.
But our investigation has found that many companies continue
to promote tours and shows with questionable animal welfare standards
despite ABTA's guidelines.
- The development of these guides provides some minimum requirements,
which are reflective of the basic animal welfare guidelines, which are known as five freedoms.
So, food and water, suitable environment, ensuring animals are kept in appropriate conditions where
they can express their normal behaviours, appropriate health care,
and then protection from fear and distress.
Basically, bad practise would be anywhere that animals are manipulated, sedated,
if they have their claws removed, teeth removed, jaws wired shut.
These are all examples that go on in the travel industry, unfortunately.
But, thankfully, ABTA and its global welfare guidance for animals and tourism polices
that as best they can.
- Activities that force animals into unnatural behaviours,
or environments where animals were restricted or tethered for long periods of time was supposed
to be off the cards.
And the guidelines seemed to have a positive impact.
TUI appeared to completely rethink its stance on animal tourism,
declaring in 2017 that elephant rides and shows were stressful for the animals
and harm their well-being.
Strange, then, that when we looked on TUI's website recently,
there were still blog posts describing unmissable elephant rides in India
and tours promoting the notorious Pinnawala Elephant
Orphanage in Sri Lanka, which has been plagued by abuse claims in the past.
Kayleigh was visiting Goa earlier this year and decided to book
a TUI tour to visit some local sites.
- Got picked up in the bus in the morning.
Was on the bus, and we heard that we'd be stopping at an elephant camp on the way.
We was taken in, and some of the tourists were invited to get onto the elephant.
The elephant, it had a chain around his neck.
Some of the tourists climbed onto the elephant, and then the elephant
was instructed to spray water over the tourists.
The handler was using a stick under the elephant's front leg to instruct the elephant
and, obviously, shouting out to do what they wanted it to do.
I was horrified.
I didn't-- I left after a couple of minutes.
I had to go and wait outside.
- When we contacted TUI, they maintained that elephant riding was not part of their tour
and that the elephant bathing Kayleigh witnessed at the camp
was within the accepted industry guidelines.
But in order for a wild animal to become tame enough to bathe with humans,
certain measures need to be followed.
And it's this breaking-in process--
sometimes called the crush--
that raises concerns.
- Ultimately, a lot of these animals have been in logging camps--
some of them-- and then taken on by tourist operations.
Some of animals have been caught in the wild, specifically to go into tourism.
And when you take a wild animal and put them in a situation where they're controlled,
they have to go through a breaking-in process, recognising the human being as being
the dominant.
And that is done in numerous ways.
In some cases, through positive reinforcement with the use of food, but in other cases,
negative reinforcement, which could be abusive.
It could involve food deprivation, sleep deprivation,
and, ultimately, breaking the animal into a submissive state.
And in an elephant camp, that is maintained by the mahout, or the keeper,
keeping the bull hook or the anchors very much close to the elephant
so the elephant knows that, that is the item of control.
So whether you're using the animal for riding, for bathing, for feeding, for painting pictures,
for standing on the heads, whatever the animal is used for, that barbaric process of breaking in
is always there.
- Derek was on a Saga holiday, in Nepal, with his wife, when
he caught this footage of a tethered elephant.
- My wife loves elephants.
And we wanted to see them in the wild, along with tigers.
This was a Saga tour.
And it just told us where we were staying.
It didn't give any details.
And it said we would be going out for a trip.
It started off by us being shown this elephant with its handler, who'd
said he'd been with it for 20-odd years.
And he was getting this elephant to do one or two, well, it was like, tricks.
He was getting it to lift its leg and he was throwing lumps of straw.
And he was saying how well he treated this elephant and now they were buddies.
And they've been together for all this time.
I was uncomfortable, that animal being shown to us in the way that it was.
And then, when we came back to the lodge, we couldn't come in the main entrance,
and so we had to go into another entrance.
And in doing so, I noticed an elephant, which I thought was tied up.
It was very sad thing to see it.
Its head swinging backwards and forwards and ducking down.
And it was trying to lift its legs and his head would go down towards his legs that were tied up.
It was in distress.
It was not a nice thing to see.
- Saga responded by dropping elephant rides from its itineraries.
But it still sends customers to the Machan Country Villa as part of its Temples and Tigers Tour.
- From a biologist's perspective, these are unpredictable animals and for elephants,
highly dangerous.
They're a category one animal, so highly dangerous animal.
And, therefore, contact should be down to an absolute minimum, if at all.
- The list of travel agencies ignoring ABTA's guidelines is comprehensive.
On TripAdvisor, we found tickets to Gatorland in Orlando, where visitors can wrestle alligators,
and to the Wildlife Habitat Zoo in Australia, which encourages
tourists to hold crocodiles for souvenir snaps.
Images we found posted online clearly show the reptiles' jaws have been taped shut, which
absolutely goes against ABTA's guidelines.
- I think they should definitely be doing more.
I mean, they say that they've got a plan in place to create this type of ethical tourism.
But it's just, obviously, not following through.
I think they should be doing more.
- Five out of nine companies we've contacted have taken action, so progress is being made.
Thomas Cook has commissioned independent auditing of its animal attractions
and has subsequently dropped several from its websites.
But we did find that online customers were still being directed to a third-party supplier
to buy tickets for Ocean World in the Dominican Republic, despite welfare concerns.
This link has now been removed.
Only one company we surveyed, Audley Travel, was found to be applying best practise
- One of the best things to ask is, are you implementing ABTA's animal welfare guidelines?
And if they're not, then, ultimately, as a member of the public, as a client,
you could say, well, why not?
- I would hope, now, that they would come forward and say
that we have been there and checked these places.
And that, in our experience, that these animals are looked after properly.
- As a tourist, you can help apply the pressure to travel agencies.
Check their animal welfare policy and report any exploitation
you do witness to your tour operator.
If you don't get a satisfactory response, contact a charity that deals with animal welfare.
To avoid accidentally supporting animal cruelty altogether,
we suggest avoiding activities and shows that involve captive animals.
To see our article in full, head to which.co.uk and subscribe to our YouTube channel
for more advice and investigations.