What to do and what to avoid when traveling ethically
There has been a significant increase in demand for wildlife-based travel experiences in the last couple of years. My mother and grandmother were born in Mozambique, which kept me interested in wildlife and the topic from an early age. I want to convey it’s essential to ask the correct questions.
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With the rise of ecotourism, people are becoming more interested in nature. I want to convey that it’s essential to ask the correct questions and conduct effective research, as many attractions make deceptive claims about being moral or conservation-focused.
It is exciting and hopeful but engaging with wildlife — especially the captive kind — carries a responsibility to ensure our presence is positive for the animals and their environment and doesn’t cause them harm.
The money generated by tourism is used by parks and wildlife areas to support native species, fund conservation efforts, and maintain their facilities. Unfortunately, many others rely financially on canned hunting or even resort to harming or starving captive animals when visitors aren’t present to make them appear more engaging.
When searching for where to engage in wildlife and conservation experiences ethically, it’s essential to consider where the animals have come from, why they are in captivity (if they are), what to expect to do for tourists when they visit, and what their life might look like in the future.
What to avoid
You may well have already heard this advice before, but never engage with unacceptable wildlife-based experiences, regardless of the situation:
- Petting young wild animals such as baby tigers and monkeys
- Circus or performance animals
- Petting dangerous predators and giant whales and dolphins
- Walking alongside elephants or predators such as tigers
What to actively engage with:
1. Visit community-based ecotourism projects
Countless local communities around the world rely on international tourism for their livelihoods.
Communities engaging in ecotourism operations need to be supported enough to reject the destructive offers from logging, mining, plantation, and cattle ranching companies offering significant sums of money for their land.
2. Go with ethically minded tour operators working in tandem with conservationists.
When looking for wildlife-based tours, mainly all-inclusive deals, consider researching to find single operators working in tandem with conservationists or scientists. This way, there will likely be more people sitting at the ideation table thinking about ethics than profit.
When tours are planned from the ground up with scientists and ethical wildlife treatment, they are much safer projects to engage with. Your money will likely be spent harmoniously helping the places you are visiting and those living within them.
There are lots of ethically minded people creating these tours out there today, and often these are cheaper than the more heavily marketed tours from significant operators. They will likely provide a more authentic, unique experience too.
3. Visit genuine rehabilitation centres.
When animals are physically or mentally damaged, you would assume they’d be lucky to end up in a rehabilitation centre to be nursed back to health and released to the wild, or if that’s not possible, given a safe home for the remainder of their lives.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case and some less genuine “sanctuaries” and “rehab centres” are more focused on financial gain than animal welfare. Before visiting, try to make sure a facility does not partake in the following:
- Animal performances or circus acts
- Trading of animals
- Breeding of animals
- Riding, touching, or walking with animals
Keeping animals not part of a sanctioned conservation initiative who do not have a safe home for life or will not be released to the wild if able.
Keeping animals that do not need to be there (i.e. not injured, unwell, handicapped, orphaned, abandoned, or rescued)
False advertising or reluctant to be transparent with details of operations
Often the ethical facilities, wildlife attractions, and experiences are not only less hands-on, but they can cost a premium. Try not to be put off by these higher prices if your budget allows, as supporting them will increase their ability to do good work.
4. Ethics of Safaris
The history of safari was built on colonialist hunting culture and the killing of trophy animals such as lions, leopards, tigers, or elephants as a status symbol. And as much as the camera has now replaced the gun in many cases, there is still an uncomfortable and sobering reality that many safaris are still run similarly: animals tend to be fenced in by the landowner, and visitors still partake in hunting animals.
Research the organisation’s purpose and ethos when choosing which safari or similar activity to join. Do they operate in canned hunting (releasing captive animals to be tracked and hunted)? Have they defined the maximum number of visitors in the park at any given time? Is the primary focus of the park the welfare of the wildlife and habitat? These questions are essential as too many unethical businesses put profit above ethics.
It is up to us as consumers to know what to look out for, as our decisions on where we spend our money will shape the future and its ethics.
