Twenty travel companies have in the last month vowed to stop selling elephant rides and elephant shows, according to World Animal Protection, an animal-welfare nonprofit.
World Animal Protection has been petitioning travel companies to sign on to its elephant-friendly tourism initiative. Thus far, Travel Corporation USA, G Adventures and Intrepid Travel are among the companies that have committed to it.
Additionally, Travel Corporation USA’s family of brands — including African Travel Inc., Brendan Vacations, Contiki, Grand European Travel, Insight Vacations, Lion World Travel, Red Carnation Hotel Collection, Trafalgar, and Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection — this week announced that they are adopting a new animal-welfare policy in collaboration with the company’s nonprofit organization, the TreadRight Foundation.
The new policy, which the company is calling the TreadRight Animal Welfare Policy, asserts that animals under human control should have freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury, and disease; freedom to express normal behavior; and freedom from fear and distress.
The Travel Corporation’s operations team will vet and assess all animal-related activities based on the policy. Activities that are not in line with the policy will be phased out and replaced with activities that meet and exceed these standards.
“We are constantly evaluating our impact on the destinations we visit, and we certainly include animal welfare in that scope,” Richard Launder, president of Travel Corporation USA, said in a statement.
According to Priscilla Ma, executive director of World Animal Protection in the U.S., “there is no humane way to ride an elephant.” She added that some 3,000 elephants are suffering in captivity today in venues across Asia and Southern Africa.
