A new report from World Animal Protection, a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation, has exposed the tourism industry’s abusive treatment of animals and accused a popular travel company of being a key partner in this abuse. The report, entitled “Making Memories Misery: How GetYourGuide Profits from Animal Cruelty”, profiles some of the worst animal tourism operators that partnered with it, where captive animals endure abusive training, get inadequate food and water, and are forced into frightening interactions with people.
These include Dolphin Discovery (Mexico, the Caribbean, USA), Miami Seaquarium (USA), Amer Fort (India), self-proclaimed elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, Daniel Johnson’s Monkey and Sloth Hangout (Honduras), Gatorland (USA), Cayman Turtle Centre (Cayman Islands), and Bali Safari Marine Park (Indonesia).
At the dilapidated aquarium in Miami, Florida, a dolphin was found dead from acute trauma at the bottom of a tank. At the fort in Jaipur, Rajasthan, an elephant was beaten repeatedly with bull hooks to force it to give rides to tourists. At a self-proclaimed “conservation facility” in the Cayman Islands, a turtle was killed when a visitor dropped her, cracking her shell. The common factor in all these tragedies, the report said, is GetYourGuide, which sells tickets to each of these venues—and many others like them—every day.
World Animal Protection said it tried repeatedly to engage with GetYourGuide to inform the company about the suffering and abuse it is profiting from, but the company rejected all efforts, even ignoring a recent demonstration outside its headquarters in the German capital. TheSnout.in also reached out by email to GetYourGuide for its response to the charge of promoting animal cruelty, but until the time of publication after three days of waiting, there was no response apart from an automated acknowledgement of receipt.
Liz Cabrera Holtz, senior campaigns manager at World Animal Protection U.S., said: “When it comes to animals, GetYourGuide prioritizes profit over anything else. GetYourGuide’s executives are indifferent to the 550,000 animals suffering in concrete tanks and decrepit cages for tourist entertainment. That’s why we are warning travellers to avoid GetYourGuide until the company adopts a public animal welfare policy. When you book with GetYourGuide, you run the risk of supporting severe animal cruelty.”
Wild animals used by the tourism industry are either taken by force from their natural habitat or bred into captivity, often separated from their families at an early age. They suffer immensely from the moment they are born or captured, and then throughout their lives. They all experience harm, stress, and discomfort at venues that fail to meet even their most basic needs, the organization said in a press release.
Other major tourism companies such as Airbnb, Expedia, and Booking.com have all stopped selling tickets to captive wildlife entertainment venues, World Animal Protection said, adding that GetYourGuide remains an outlier. Airbnb, Expedia, and Booking.com worked with the organization to jointly create animal welfare policies that are mandatory for their hosts, it said.
World Animal Protection, founded in Britain, has been exposing cruel systems, promoting animal-friendly alternatives, and working to influence policy for over 70 years. Working across almost 50 countries with offices in 12, World Animal Protection is the only animal welfare organization with U.N. consultative status, enabling it to engage with and influence global decision-makers. It prioritizes animals in farming and wild animals exploited for use in entertainment, as pets, and in fashion.
World Animal Protection said it has the expertise to help travel companies ensure that the experiences they offer respect both wild animals and the people whose livelihoods depend on them. It hoped the release of its report would finally move GetYourGuide to own up to the harm it is causing and profiting from, and work to develop its own public animal welfare policy.
SOURCE: PR Newswire
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