The dark truth behind wildlife tourism

The dark truth behind wildlife tourism(nationalgeographic.com)

40 points by boernard 7 years ago | 25 comments

belorn 7 years ago |

The story about dolphins makes me wonder why domestic horses are viewed as normal. When I compare them to dolphins the same boxes pops up. Horses have evolved to run great distances and live in larger social groups. The area which horses are kept is comparable very small compared to their wild counterpart. Horses are usually kept with only one or a few other horses, but the law do allow them to be isolated. There isn't much strict law dictating how much space they must have.

devoply 7 years ago | |

Comments like your's makes me wonder why humans have been turned into zombies sitting in front of a desk most of their lives. Humans also did not evolve for the environment that they have created for themselves with their technology. They evolved as hunter gatherers that often traveled large distances chasing their food source. What they created for themselves in their sedentary lifestyles in no way resembles that.

ip26 7 years ago | | |

Perhaps because we are endurance hunters, we are programmed from birth to seek comfort & idleness. The way I see it, we were "designed" to live in tension between wanting to be idle (to save energy), but having to be active to survive.

Once we became runaway successful, that tension between a need to be active & a desire to be idle started to disappear.

rwallace 7 years ago | | |

Yes. Excessive working hours and too little exercise are huge problems pretty nearly everywhere in the world. The problem of cruelty to one species is in no way diminished by observing the problem of cruelty to another species. Were you suggesting otherwise?

maxxxxx 7 years ago | | |

I think both your comment and your parent poster’s comments make sense.

9nGQluzmnq3M 7 years ago | | |

Humans have a choice. Captive animals don't.

ip26 7 years ago | |

IMO the answer is pretty simple; they were vital to building modern society, and as a result we're culturally accustomed to their use.

It probably helps that many (though by no stretch all) horses are very well taken care of and have a job to do. Show animals on the other hand (horse or dolphin) have a long track record of abuse, exploitation, neglect, and boredom.

scythe 7 years ago |

When I initially clicked the link, I expected to hear about some bad things that happen when lots of tourists go somewhere to look at wildlife. Wildlife, to me, means animals which are not captive to humans. But the majority of animals described in this article -- tame elephants, dancing bears, trained monkeys and so forth -- are born, raised and abused in captivity.

Now if you told me that animal performance attractions are typically cruel, that would be a much less surprising headline -- the sordid history of circus animals is a long-told story. I guess the Amazon river dolphins are wildlife, but if the punchline of the story were "dolphins hurt each other fighting for bait", I don't think it would arouse quite as much pity in the audience. And I wouldn't be nearly as surprised to hear that there is a "dark secret" lurking behind "exotic animal encounter" tourism.

So I feel a little disappointed in the title.

itronitron 7 years ago | |

Yes, but a lot of these experiences for tourists are offered in a way that conceals the 'performance' aspect in such a way that people feel they are having a wildlife experience.

neonate 7 years ago |

https://outline.com/jjGgwW

everybodyknows 7 years ago |

The label itself is a lie -- those animals aren't wildlife any more. They're captives in most brutal imprisonment.

fqw3b58w4n6 7 years ago |

Go Vegan. If you already believe animal cruelty is wrong, you already believe in veganism.

vinay427 7 years ago | |

Just to add a few thoughts to this for those who believe in animal welfare:

If you think it's too hard or impractical, assuming you live in a developed country it's almost certainly quite feasible and can be very cheap.

If you think it's too radical, it probably shouldn't seem any different than any of the other moral conundrums we abstain from. Is it radical to not kill, assault, or rob people?

Of course, the context of social acceptance matters, but to illustrate why this (in my opinion) isn't always appropriate, something more comparable: would you consider it radical to not enslave people if you lived in the US during the era of slavery and had the choice to do so but thought it morally wrong?

harimau777 7 years ago | | |

I've tried to eat at least more vegan and found it quite difficult. I can put some chicken, refried beans, cheese, and a tortilla in the microwave and have a satisfying, high calorie meal in five minutes. I haven't found a vegan equivalent yet.

phil248 7 years ago | |

How about instead of Go Vegan....

Go eat how you think you should eat. Maybe that includes insects. Maybe that includes steak once a month. Maybe it includes eggs but not milk. Make up your own mind and don't feel limited by the tiny number of established labels. They each come with their own complicated caveats and connotations. And they each demand, by virtue of their established labels, strict adherence to someone else's ideology.

Go make up your own ideology.

ebg13 7 years ago | |

That's not really true, though, because killing something and being cruel to something aren't the same thing.

Swenrekcah 7 years ago | |

I believe animal cruelty is wrong and I respect people who commit to vegeterianism/veganism, but I’ll keep eating meat until it’s economically unviable.

devin 7 years ago | | |

From which angle? I can't cite figures off the top of my head, but my understanding is that it's well established that eating meat is economically unviable in numerous ways.

Causality1 7 years ago | |

Nobody could argue that factory-farmed chicken and pork isn't evil, but there are ways to eat meat without cruelty. Steers raised for meat are not miserable, nor are deer I (try) to shoot every winter.