Animal tourism is ABUSE, the question is ~ ARE YOU PREPARED TO PAY FOR THAT ABUSE ??
If you cuddle a cub, it will have been taken from it’s mother soon after birth in order for it to be humanised to earn your money, if you walk with lions, it will be one of those cubs you cuddled to earn more money, that cub you cuddled, that lion you walked with will then be SHOT, either by a trophy hunter or for it’s bones to feed the insatiable greed of Asians ~ to earn money.
If you go to an elephant show, that elephant will have been ‘trained’ from a very young age in order that you may interact with it, the training is BARBARIC !! These little babies are LITERALLY broken for your enjoyment, when he is older you will be able to ride him & he will be constantly jabbed with a bull hook, he will chained when not carrying you around, if he’s lucky it will just be a chain, if he isn’t it will be spikes around his ankle, hours upon hours upon hours.
If you pose with tigers, they will be drugged, behind the scenes they will be abused & kept in unacceptable conditions.
If you visit a dolphin or whale show, they will be kept in conditions far removed from being free to swim the distances they should if they were wild, they will perform so they can eat, they will probably have been taken from the wild to be contained in tanks where they become depressed & start to self harm. AND NO, their noses are not there to propel you around a tank for a cheap thrill & photo opportunity !!
If you visit a zoo you are paying for captivity, there is NO conservation value to captive bred animals, they can never be released, they just sit in enclosures for you to oggle, yes some enclosures are better than others, but for an animal which should be living free, they are all jails.
Bears, monkeys, apes, camels, parrots, sea lions etc,etc,etc,etc all leading miserable inadequate lives for your enjoyment ~ do you REALLY want to pay for that !!
Animal tourism is all about supply & demand, if the money stops the activities stop.
Their suffering is not worth your selfie, or more precisely selfishness.
I saw something recently, it said along the lines of ‘your child probably knows more about dinosaurs than any other animal on the planet, your child has never seen a live dinosaur, your child doesn’t need to visit a zoo or have an animal interaction to learn about an animal’
This week in South Africa a four year old little girl lays in a coma, following an animal interaction a lioness was able to rip off her scalp & pierce her skull with it’s claw ~ do you want to risk your child’s life or even your own for a cheap thrill interacting with an unpredictable animal?? These reports of humans being maimed or even killed by these animals is increasing.
There are no excuses, the information is getting out there, we need to put them first, animals are in crisis & we need to be the difference that helps them!!!!
MAKE KIND CHOICES ~ SAY NO TO ANIMAL EXPLOITATION
The Wildlife Volunteer 