Being a responsible tourist

This is a little off track, but since my last post was about a cat cafe, I wanted to take a moment to discuss about the usage of animals in businesses. Whether it’s lion cubs in South Africa, elephants in Thailand, or animal themed cafes in Japan, there seems to be a sizeable market for people interested in interacting with animals they wouldn’t usually have the opportunity to do so. As an animal lover, I get super excited about such opportunities, but I’ve recently been reminded of the importance of researching about such places before visiting.

There have been several heartbreaking stories about how animals have been mistreated for profit. One recent example is in South Africa, where businesses are taking advantage of lion cubs. While they say the cubs have been “rejected” by their mothers, many places actually purposefully separate them at a young age so that tourists can interact with them while they are cute and little. Some cubs are drugged up so that humans can pet and take photos with them without stressing the cubs out. The saddest part, is when the cubs are grown and accustomed to humans, they’re sold to parks that offer westerners the opportunity to hunt them down. Not all the organizations practise this in South Africa, but you have to be careful and do your research before hand.

There are many similar stories around the world of drugging, forcing, and stressing animals out for the purpose of profit.  As tourist, are we making educational decisions before putting our money into such tourist attractions?  Humans can get so caught up in thinking that we can bend or domesticate wildlife the way most convenient for us, but instead, shouldn’t we be taking up the responsibility of defending them and respecting their natural state? If we can’t, who else will?

So far in Japan, I’ve heard of themed cafes with cats, dogs, rabbits, hedgehogs, owls, goats, and reptiles. I’ve also heard of a bar with penguins. I genuinely think that there are businesses around the world that take care of the animals, but if not checked and regulated, things can get out of hand. So next time you come across an opportunity to interact with animals, please look into the organization first. We should be responsible tourists by not putting our money where animals are mistreated for our own pleasure.