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WFFT Speaks Out Against Disney’s Promotion of Cruel Wildlife Performances in Thailand, Where Orangutans Are Forced to Kiss and Fondle Tourists

• 25 April 2023
• Primates , Wildlife Trade

Disney’s promotion of unethical wildlife attractions in Thailand could set back decades of conservation work that has fought to educate tourists on why it’s never OK to exploit wildlife for entertainment.

An infamous Thai zoo condemned for its cruelty to orangutans has been promoted this week by the Disney-owned Jimmy Kimmel show and the actor Halle Bailey, star of Disney’s upcoming The Little Mermaid remake.

At Safari World in Bangkok, Thailand, visitors can pay to pose with tigers, watch elephants perform tricks, and even see orangutans fight each other in a boxing ring. The zoo has faced sustained criticism from animal welfare groups, and was at the centre of one of the world’s largest cases of great ape smuggling when it had 115 of its orangutans seized by wildlife police back in 2004. 

Now footage from one of the zoo’s controversial attractions was shown this week during a segment on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, which is broadcast by the Disney-owned ABC. In the broadcasted clip, a female tourist at the Safari World zoo can be seen being hugged and kissed by a captive orangutan as part of a photo opportunity. Then, under the direction of the zoo’s staff, the orangutan also fondles the tourist’s breasts. The clip is met with laughter and applause from Kimmel’s live studio audience. 

In a separate incident this week, Halle Bailey, set to star as Ariel in Disney’s upcoming remake of The Little Mermaid , posted about her recent visit to Safari World on social media. 

In pictures posted to Instagram , Bailey can be seen hugging an orangutan, bottle-feeding an infant tiger cub, and posing next to an elephant. 

There are now fears that such endorsements by Jimmy Kimmel, Halle Bailey, and Disney could influence tourists into supporting controversial wildlife attractions that campaigners say cause immense suffering to animals. 

Captive orangutans are often abused physically and mentally in order to be trained to ‘perform’ tricks and obey commands, says animal welfare groups. Infant orangutans are almost always taken away from their mother, where they will be forced to live in unnatural conditions for the rest of their lives. The demand for captive orangutans is also said to fuel the hunting of the animals in the wild. All three species of orangutan are listed by the IUCN as Critically Endangered. 

“Many of us know Disney’s timeless creations like Bambi, Dumbo, and Ariel, who inspire a love for animals and wildlife that spans generations”, says a spokesperson for Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT). “Sadly, that is what makes it all the more disappointing that Disney has been involved with promoting cruel orangutan performances in Thailand this week. As one of the world’s biggest media companies, Disney’s promotion of unethical wildlife attractions in Thailand could set back decades of conservation work that has fought to educate tourists on why it’s never OK to exploit wildlife for entertainment.” 

Education is key to help tourists understand the dangers and cruelty that wildlife faces as part of unethical wildlife tourism. At WFFT we have been campaigning for over twenty years on how such wildlife attractions not only force wild animals into a lifetime of unnatural captivity, but also helps to fuel the illegal wildlife trade. 

Our sanctuary in Phetchaburi, Thailand is home to over 700 animals, many of whom have been rescued from tragic circumstances. We publicly invite Mr. Kimmel and Miss. Halle to visit us, see the animals, and hear their stories. Together, we can help end the exploitation of wild animals for tourist entertainment.

Related Posts

• previous post: Abandoned Baby Langur Now Safe at WFFT
• next post: Alarming Rise in Captive Baby Orangutans in Thailand Suggests Illegal Poaching From the Wild, Warn Wildlife Experts

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Capturing the cruelty of orangutan tourism in Asia

British photographer aaron gekoski has documented human-wildlife conflict for more than a decade. his latest project exposes the horrors of baby orangutans captured from the wild in malaysia and indonesia and forced to perform for tourists around southeast asia..

The work of Aaron Gekoski is unlikely to be found on Netflix anytime soon.

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An executive for the video streaming service recently told the British wildlife documentary maker and photojournalist that while he is a fan of his work, Netflix were looking for “cute and fluffy” content.

Gekoski’s latest project does not meet those criteria.

Eyes of the Orangutan  is an exploration of Asia’s wildlife tourism industry with a special focus on orangutans, perhaps Southeast Asia’s most potent symbol of wildlife exploitation and habitat loss.

The critically-endangered great apes are being used as tourist attractions in hundreds of venues across the region, and Gekoski’s documentary examines the brutality of the trade and the ruthlessness of the people profiting from a global industry worth more than US$120 billion.

British willdlife film-maker and photojournalist Aaron Gekoski. Image: Orangutan Alliance

Gekoski documents how poachers venture into the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia to butcher female orangutans and take their babies, which are imprisoned in tiny enclosures and torture-trained to perform as bikini models or kick-boxers in venues around the region.

These establshments are able to justify themselves by claiming they have social value, says Gekoski. “One of the most commonly-peddled arguments for wildlife tourism is education. This claim is very   deceptive.”

Gekoski observes that there is usually little more than a plaque informing visitors where orangutans come from and that they’re endangered. “People really go there to stare at an abused orangutan in a glass box,” he says.

Gekoski swapped the glamour of running a model agency in London to become a wildlife photographer more than a decade ago, and is under no illusions of the gloomy nature of the stories he tells.

If we are able to do this to one of our closest living relatives, what hope is there for any other species? Aaron Gekoski

Fascinated with the macabre and the darker side of life, Gekoski believes that the state of the natural world should not be sugarcoated, as it has been in many popular nature documentaries.

“David Attenborough has always been my hero. When I started out as a filmmaker, I wanted to document the beauty of the natural world and share it with as many people as possible. But when I got out there, I realised that things weren’t quite as they seemed in those BBC documentaries. At every corner, wildlife is being hammered,” he says.

The exploitation of orangutans as tourist attractions is particularly disturbing because of how closely related people are to these animals, whose name means people of the forest in Malay. “If we are able to do this to one of our closest living relatives, what hope is there for any other species?” says Gekoski.

Orangutans could be extinct in the wild in a decade, if current rates of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia continue, so how orangutans are treated in captivity is of existential importance, he says. In this interview, Gekoski talks about the impact he hopes to have through his work, how orangutan tourism can be stopped and the difficulty in getting people to consume hard-hitting content.

Your latest project, Eyes of the Orangutan , explores the cruelty of wild-caught orangutans used as tourist attractions in Southeast Asia. What was the genesis of this project?

I’d been covering the wildlife tourism industry around the world for a few years. I was in Vietnam and I encountered a large, male orangutan who was being kept in a 4 metre by 4 metre glass enclosure with nothing but two concrete boulders cemented to the floor.

I spent a whole afternoon with this male, and saw how people would come by, smack on my glass and scream at him. It was a poignant scene. I could see that this male orangutan was broken. I’d filmed and photographed orangutans quite a lot before, but never in this capacity. It dawned on me that if we were able to do this to one of our closest living relatives, what hope is there for any other species? That kick-started a three-year investigation to try and get this story out there.

An orangutan hiding behind two concrete boulders in a small enclosure in Dam Sen, Vietnam. Gekoski’s encounter with this orangutan was the genesis of the Eyes of the orangutan documentary. Image: Aaron Gekoski

We traveled all over Asia, investigating the industry, and where the orangutans are coming from. We interviewed traders who explained how the babies were called from the jungle and the mother would be killed with a machete. They would steal the babies, put them in a safe-house and export them to wildlife tourism attractions around Asia.

They would be beaten, electrocuted or food-deprived to condition them to perform, for instance in boxing shows in Thailand. They would be locked away in completely inappropriate enclosures, usually without proper veterinary care or fed the right diet. Some are grossly overfed, which leads to obesity because they don’t have enough room to move around.

That would be their life for 40 or 50 years until they die. If humans were put through this, it would be called torture. I’ve done stories on the dog meat trade, which is horrific and there is a lot of suffering. But at least the animals are rounded up from the streets and are dead within 24 hours. With wildlife tourism, animals suffer years of sustained physical and emotional abuse.

On orangutan in a boxing attraction in Thailand. Image: Aaron Gekoski

How prevalent is orangutan tourism in Asia?

It’s very common in Southeast Asia. There are places where orangutans are kept all over the world, but there are more in this region, because it is a lot easier to get hold of an orangutan from the wild here.

It’s a massive problem. Almost all of the wildlife tourism attractions are completely unsuitable for orangutans. In the wild, orangutans hardly ever encounter each other except to mate. And they almost never leave the trees. Yet in the wildlife tourism attractions, you see them in very unnatural situations where they might be sprawled across a concrete floor and kept with other animals.

Orangutans are the world’s largest arboreal mammal, spending almost all of their time in trees. It is unnatural for them to be spend any time on the ground. The pictured orangutan is housed at Pata Zoo, which is located at the top of a department store in Bangkok. Image: Aaron Gekoski

Studies have shown how stressed and depressed orangutans get in captivity. You can really see it in their eyes. That’s why our documentary is called Eyes of the Orangutan .

One of the places we shot the documentary was at the  Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Central Kalimantan, which is doing a phenomenal job of trying to mitigate the problems orangutans face – not just tourism, but deforestation and the illegal pet trade. Jamartin Sihite, the foundation’s CEO, said of the victims of the trade : “You can see that there is nothing left behind their eyes.” That really hit home to us. Their souls have been broken.

Rescue centres like theirs are stuck in a difficult situation. People always rejoice when an orangutan is rescued from wildlife tourism centre – and in some ways they should. But after they’re rescued, what do you do with these poor orangutans? Because they have often grown up in captivity, they wouldn’t last a second if they were released into the wild. So you end up with a situation like at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, where orangutans rescued from a Thai boxing show are stuck there, and they don’t really know what to do with them.

In an ideal world, they could all be rehabilitated and released. But that’s often not realistic. It takes a huge amount of resources, land and time to rehab an orangutan to the point where it can be released into the wild – and that isn’t necessarily available. It can be done with younger ones. But with older animals, it’s often impossible.

A pair of rescued baby orangutans at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Central Kalimantan. Young orangutans have a much better chance of being rehabilitated and released into the wild than older animals. Image: Aaron Gekoski

Why do people visit wildlife tourism centres?

People have an inherent fascination with animals. You see it in babies. The first thing they start learning is how to make animal sounds and identify different types of animals. We have an innate desire to be close to animals and inhabit their world, but that’s not usually possible. To see an orangutan in the wild is very difficult. It’s expensive and if you do see them in a truly wild situation, you might only get a glimpse of them. At a wildlife tourism attraction you can get within a metre of these animals that we have grown up learning about and being fascinated with.

Wildlife tourism is an industry that has been around since the ancient Egyptians. It is thousands of years old. And it is probably never going to go away. But with all of the knowledge we now have on animal sentience and animal intelligence, we know how much these animals suffer in captivity. We understand that animals aren’t just there to be exploited, and there’s a growing movement against wildlife tourism.

But the movement has been countered by the rise of social media. People want to have their photos taken with dressed-up orangutans and put it on social media as a reflection of themselves: ‘Look at me, I’m with a wild animal, aren’t I adventurous?’ Social media has been catastrophic for captive wildlife animals. It has really helped facilitate the wildlife tourism industry.

Orangutans dressed up at Safari World, Bangkok. Image: Aaron Gekoski

Have you become desensitised to the suffering you’ve seen?

Yes, absolutely. I think all photographers become numb to suffering and cruelty eventually. But I’ve had times where I’ve completely crashed. Just before Covid hit I’d been on one assignment after another. I’d been to 12 countries in six months, and I did a story about dog - eating in Cambodia. It pushed me over the edge, and I questioned if I could carry on. 

Then Covid hit and I took some time to write a book –  Animosity: Human-Animal Conflict in the 21st Century   – which covers all the stories I’ve worked on over the years. It was   a cathartic experience and gave me renewed vigour to return to photographing captive wildlife. It can be painful mentally, but it’s nothing compared to what a lot of animals are going through.

What impact do you hope to have through your work?

There isn’t much point in documenting wildlife tourism if there’s no change at all. But there are different measures of success. It could be just one person who sees my photos, learns about wildlife tourism and thinks twice about visiting a venue, to getting wildlife tourism establishments shut down or government legislation changed.

A boy is photographed with a boxing orangutan at Safari World, Cambodia. Image: Aaron Gegoski

How can wildlife tourism be improved?

There are various rules as to what constitutes a cruel wildlife tourism attraction and what doesn’t. First of all, any venue where you can ride or touch or take a selfie with an animal is a big no-no. All elephant riding or animal performances of any kind are a big no, because of the way the animals are trained, which is often incredibly cruel. The animals have to perform the same meaningless tricks all their lives, and are literally driven crazy.

There are many other issues to consider, such as the size of the animals’ enclosures, their diets, how well stimulated they are, and how close tourists are allowed to them. There are words bandied around to describe wildlife tourism attractions, like “eco” and “sanctuary”, which are used to fool people into visiting these places. I know highly educated people who’ve told me they visited a wildlife sanctuary in Thailand and were so happy they got to bathe the elephants. They were completely unaware of the issues surrounding the industry. 

“ All you can do is educate people. But when you’re doing that, as a Westerner you have to be prepared for the fact that people will tell you to fuck off.

There are very few truly ethical wildlife tourism attractions. Wildlife tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry. There are a lot of shady characters in the industry with links to organised crime who are able to obtain animals from the wild. There were DNA studies done on the orangutans at Safari World used in the boxing shows that showed that the animals came from Malaysia and Indonesia , rather than being born and bred in Thailand, as the venue claimed they were.

The modus operandi is to capture the animals illegally, bribe government officials, fake permits and smuggle them in. The ruthlessness and brutality of the industry is hard to stomach. A poacher we spoke to said him and his friends would sit around laughing when they caught an orangutan baby from the jungle, knowing that it would end up in a boxing show.

Other orangutans, we were told, were sent off to be prostitutes. They would be shaved, made up and used for sex. You’d think this to be so unbelievable that it couldn’t be true, but it is. There was a famous case of an orangutan called Pony used as a prostitute in Indonesia. 

An orangutan at Safari World in Cambodia. Image: Aaron Gekoski

How can wildlife tourism be stopped?

All countries want to avoid negative publicity. If they’re continually bombarded with negative publicity about the wildlife tourism industry, it’s going to harm the tourism industry. In Asia, shame is a powerful way to bring about change. 

In the research I’ve done for stories, I’ve found that the situation in many countries in Asia has actually improved. It’s still going on, but it’s more underground. That makes it harder to document things, but it gives me hope as it means that change is afoot.

How much of a problem is being a Westerner reporting on an issue in Asia that some might not perceive to be wrong? 

There can be criticism from people who say: “You know nothing about our culture, stay away.” My response is to say, “I’m a photojournalist, and I put these stories in the public domain” and try and be as factual and non-emotional as possible.

Take the dog eating story I just worked on. Who am I to tell a culture that has been eating dog meat for centuries not to do that? All I can do is explain the issues, for instance that dogs are intelligent, sensitive animals that suffer when they’re killed in this manner [dogs are drowned, strangled or stabbed before they’re sold as meat]. Also, street dogs carry diseases, and many are stolen pets.

All I can do is – and this is a very patronising thing to say – educate people. But when I’m doing that, as a Westerner I have to be prepared for the fact that a lot of the time people I will be told to fuck off. And that’s understandable.

An unreleasable orangutan at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Image: Aaron Gegoski

Have you ever confronted wildlife tourists about the cruelty they are supporting?

Yes, I have. But as much as I would like to scream and reprimand people I generally tend not to do it. Is it really going to change anyone’s perception? The most effective way to prompt people to think about what they’re doing is to ask questions. During the making of Eyes of the Orangutan , we asked a very educated couple at a wildlife tourism attraction if they knew where orangutans were from, how they thought the animals got here, and how they were trained. We could see them start to question the morality of the place.

How will you be distributing your documentary? 

It is on the festival circuit at the moment. We are hoping that it will be picked up by some major broadcasters. But it is very hard to get conservation films out in the public domain. I was recently patted patronisingly on the back by a Netflix executive, who said: “You’re doing very good work out there, but we’re looking for something cute and fluffy.”

I think because people are going through difficult times at the moment, it’s particularly difficult to get conservation documentaries out there.  Eyes of the Orangutan is billed as a deep-dive into a dark world of abuse. Perhaps the next wildlife trade documentary we work on we’ll frame differently.

If people see a documentary and think it’s just going to depress them, and make them feel helpless, they might not watch it. But if the documentary is an exploration of our relationship with a particular animal, that might be a more compelling way to reach people.  

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In a new report by the organization World Animal Protection, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums is criticized for not holding member and affiliated facilities to high enough standards of animal welfare. Here at Avilon Zoo, in the Philippines, an orangutan dressed in human clothes is used as a photo prop for tourists.

• WILDLIFE WATCH

Hundreds of zoos and aquariums accused of mistreating animals

Many "gold-standard" zoos and aquariums worldwide let visitors pet, feed, and take selfies with animals, a new report finds.

In a new report, an animal welfare group has flagged hundreds of zoos affiliated with the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) for mistreating animals, including making big cats perform in gladiator-style shows, elephants play basketball, and diapered chimpanzees ride scooters.

WAZA , founded in 1935, is a global organization of zoos and aquariums that promotes conservation and animal welfare. Unlike the U.S.-based Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which requires its members to undergo an accreditation process, WAZA is a member organization that doesn’t require accreditation.

According to Gavrielle Kirk-Cohen, WAZA’s director of communications, the organization relies on its accrediting member associations to enforce their standards among their member zoos and aquariums. Becoming a WAZA member requires filling out an application, submitting letters of support from two other WAZA members, and paying a fee. Zoos, for example, must pay 2,500 euros, or nearly $2,800.

According to the report , by World Animal Protection (WAP), an international nonprofit organization that promotes welfare and humane treatment, 75 percent of WAZA’s 1,241 members—including those defined by WAP as “indirect” members (zoos or aquariums that belong to WAZA-member associations)—offer at least one animal-visitor interaction. WAZA, which doesn’t recognize indirect members, claims only 400 members worldwide. Such contact, the report notes, can be damaging for animals’ mental and physical well-being and often requires training methods such as premature separation from mothers, physical restraint, and pain- and fear-based conditioning.

“Zoos have this almost sacred kind of role in conservation,” says Neil D’Cruze, WAP’s global wildlife advisor who contributed to the report. “It’s time for [WAZA] to take a step back and take the leadership role that we as visitors, let alone WAP as an NGO, need them to take.”

D’Cruze says WAP included indirect members in the report because it believes WAZA should, at a minimum, outline a code of ethics and animal welfare policy for those zoos and aquariums, which it doesn’t now.

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The report’s researchers identified a dozen venues of particular concern, which they visited alongside researchers from the animal advocacy organization Change For Animals Foundation. These venues include African Lion Safari in Canada, Cango Wildlife Ranch in South Africa, and SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas. WAP considers SeaWorld to be an indirect member because it’s accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which is a member of WAZA.

The WAP report criticized African Lion Safari, which also features other African animals, for offering elephant rides.

Representatives from African Lion Safari did not respond to a request for comment.

The report said Cango Wildlife Ranch “offers visitors the chance to pet cheetahs and servals in an enclosed yard, taking selfies with the animals under the supervision of staff members.”

Tammy Moult, assistant director of tourism at Cango Wildlife Ranch, said they “were absolutely broken” at Cango’s inclusion in the WAP report. “We started doing substantial research on [WAP] and found a lot of scorned and unhappy ex-employees, donators, contributors, and many cracks and holes in the organization became clear without much effort,” she said in an email. “The ‘facts’ are grossly unfounded and irresponsible.”

WAP notes that SeaWorld San Antonio offers shows and opportunities to swim, pet, and pose with dolphins, which respond to commands from trainers.

In an emailed statement, SeaWorld San Antonio spokesperson Suzanne Pelisson-Beasley wrote, “Accredited zoos and aquariums like SeaWorld play an important role in raising the bar on animal welfare practices, advancing vital conservation efforts, and facilitating marine mammal rescues.”

The AZA, of which SeaWorld San Antonio is an accredited member, says the facility meets or exceeds their accreditation requirements. “Accredited facilities, like SeaWorld San Antonio, hold themselves to high standards and are still only a fraction of facilities that hold and display animals,” AZA president and CEO Dan Ashe wrote in an emailed statement.

In a statement, WAZA said WAP’s report was incorrect and that the organization takes animal welfare seriously. “WAZA is in accord with WAP that such practices have no place in a modern zoo or aquarium,” the statement says. “Unfortunately, the report contains a number of inaccuracies, including naming institutions which are not WAZA members and thus which WAZA has limited jurisdiction over.”

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Two of WAP’s venues of concern—Dolphin Island in Singapore and Jungle Cat World in Canada—are not WAZA members, according to Kirk-Cohen. Jungle Cat World lost its WAZA membership last year after it resigned from Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA). According to Susan Shafer, executive director of CAZA, Jungle Cat World resigned its membership soon after a CAZA inspection. She couldn’t comment on the inspection’s findings, which are confidential. Kirk-Cohen says it’s unclear if Dolphin Island was ever a WAZA member.

D’Cruze says Dolphin Island and Jungle Cat World were members when WAP compiled their report earlier this year and are listed as members in WAZA’s 2017 annual report —the most recent available report. Dolphin Island still has the WAZA logo on its website.

Pointing fingers

Of the 1,241 venues WAP surveyed, 940 were, by its definition, indirect members. The main point of contention between WAZA and WAP is over these indirect members. According to Kirk-Cohen, zoos and aquariums WAP listed as indirect members in the report are not members, and WAZA can’t impose its ethics standards on non-members.

“It is misleading to state that the remaining seven [of the 12 venues of particular concern] are ‘indirect WAZA members,’” she says. “We’re quite limited in capacity in what we can do, especially when it comes to non-members,” she says.

But D’Cruze insists that WAZA has a responsibility toward these indirect members and that they can punish direct members who accredit unethical indirect members. “[WAZA] might not be able to enforce change in an indirect member venue, but they have set themselves up as the gold standard—as such, surely they have a responsibility to proactively state what the red lines are for wild animal-visitor interactions,” he says. “It has a critical role that it should not shy away from.”

CAZA’s Shafer says quibbling over membership technicalities is not the answer here. “The big issue is not what label one organization has or another organization has,” she says. “It’s can we learn something from this to help improve the conditions of the animals?”

WAZA’s code of ethics and animal welfare , which is binding for members, states that if they use wild animals in presentations, they must “focus on natural behavior” and “not demean or trivialize the animal in any way.” Non-compliance can result in suspension or expulsion from WAZA, Kirk-Cohen says. She says that during the past year three members have had their WAZA membership terminated after losing accreditation with their regional or national association.

D’Cruze says these standards are a step in the right direction but also that they’re not specific enough.

“It’s really great, and there’s some really positive language in there that helps set the scene, but where’s the specifics?” he says. “What actually constitutes unnatural and demeaning?”

“Considering the vast range of species our members take care of,” Kirk-Cohen says, it’s not possible to provide a list of unnatural or demeaning behaviors, but they’re ones animals wouldn’t exhibit in the wild, Kirk-Cohen says. WAZA relies on accrediting associations to set more specific standards.

Stressful experiences

World Animal Protection’s report describes venues that offered encounters where visitors can stroke, kiss, and cuddle with big cats, shows where humans “surf” on the backs of dolphins, and performances in which elephants paint pictures with their trunks. The most common interaction was petting—offered by 43 percent of facilities, most often with mammals and reptiles. About a third offered walking or swimming through an enclosure, 30 percent had performances involving wildlife, and 23 percent had hand-feeding experiences, in which tourists can provide food and water for captive wild animals, which brings them into direct—potentially dangerous—contact with them.

These experiences are inherently stressful for animals, says Nancy Blaney, director of government affairs for the Animal Welfare Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

“Some facilities just kind of bill this as wildlife tourism, and it’s really nothing of the sort,” she says. “Wildlife tourism is the kind of thing where you go and you see wildlife in their own environs, in their own milieu—not where you go and you get to take your picture with the tiger, or you get to interact with a monkey that’s dressed up in street clothes, or kissing an orangutan, or something like that. That is not wildlife tourism; that’s exploitation.” ( Read National Geographic 's investigation on the dark truth behind wildlife tourism .)

Wild animals belong in the wild, but in some instances—for example, when an animal’s been a rescued from a roadside zoo—that’s not possible, D’Cruze says. The problem, he says, is when an organization “slips over into commercial use and entertainment.”

“Getting [animals] to the point where they’re completely safe around people involves a whole level of different training and breaking of the animal’s spirit,” D’Cruze says. “There’s a difference between a domesticated species like a cat or a dog that’s been changed over thousands of years biologically and behaviorally to be around people, and an animal that’s been broken to be tame.”

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Opinion Guest Essay

Modern Zoos Are Not Worth the Moral Cost

  Credit... Photographs by Peter Fisher for The New York Times

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By Emma Marris

Ms. Marris is an environmental writer and the author of the forthcoming book “Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World.”

• June 11, 2021

After being captives of the pandemic for more than a year, we have begun experiencing the pleasures of simple outings: dining al fresco, shopping with a friend, taking a stroll through the zoo. As we snap a selfie by the sea lions for the first time in so long, it seems worth asking, after our collective ordeal, whether our pleasure in seeing wild animals up close is worth the price of their captivity.

Throughout history, men have accumulated large and fierce animals to advertise their might and prestige. Power-mad men from Henry III to Saddam Hussein’s son Uday to the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar to Charlemagne all tried to underscore their strength by keeping terrifying beasts captive. William Randolph Hearst created his own private zoo with lions, tigers, leopards and more at Hearst Castle. It is these boastful collections of animals, these autocratic menageries, from which the modern zoo, with its didactic plaques and $15 hot dogs, springs.

The forerunners of the modern zoo, open to the public and grounded in science, took shape in the 19th century. Public zoos sprang up across Europe, many modeled on the London Zoo in Regent’s Park. Ostensibly places for genteel amusement and edification, zoos expanded beyond big and fearsome animals to include reptile houses, aviaries and insectariums. Living collections were often presented in taxonomic order, with various species of the same family grouped together, for comparative study.

The first zoos housed animals behind metal bars in spartan cages. But relatively early in their evolution, a German exotic animal importer named Carl Hagenbeck changed the way wild animals were exhibited. In his Animal Park, which opened in 1907 in Hamburg, he designed cages that didn’t look like cages, using moats and artfully arranged rock walls to invisibly pen animals. By designing these enclosures so that many animals could be seen at once, without any bars or walls in the visitors’ lines of sight, he created an immersive panorama, in which the fact of captivity was supplanted by the illusion of being in nature.

Mr. Hagenbeck’s model was widely influential. Increasingly, animals were presented with the distasteful fact of their imprisonment visually elided. Zoos shifted just slightly from overt demonstrations of mastery over beasts to a narrative of benevolent protection of individual animals. From there, it was an easy leap to protecting animal species.

The “educational day out” model of zoos endured until the late 20th century, when zoos began actively rebranding themselves as serious contributors to conservation. Zoo animals, this new narrative went, function as backup populations for wild animals under threat, as well as “ambassadors” for their species, teaching humans and motivating them to care about wildlife. This conservation focus “ must be a key component ” for institutions that want to be accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a nonprofit organization that sets standards and policies for facilities in the United States and 12 other countries.

This is the image of the zoo I grew up with: the unambiguously good civic institution that lovingly cared for animals both on its grounds and, somehow, vaguely, in their wild habitats. A few zoos are famous for their conservation work. Four of the zoos and the aquarium in New York City, for instance, are managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is involved in conservation efforts around the world. But this is not the norm.

While researching my book on the ethics of human interactions with wild species, “Wild Souls,” I examined how, exactly, zoos contribute to the conservation of wild animals.

A.Z.A. facilities report spending approximately $231 million annually on conservation projects. For comparison, in 2018, they spent $4.9 billion on operations and construction. I find one statistic particularly telling about their priorities: A 2018 analysis of the scientific papers produced by association members between 1993 and 2013 showed that just about 7 percent of them annually were classified as being about “biodiversity conservation.”

Zoos accredited by the A.Z.A. or the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria have studbooks and genetic pedigrees and carefully breed their animals as if they might be called upon at any moment to release them, like Noah throwing open the doors to the ark, into a waiting wild habitat. But that day of release never quite seems to come.

There are a few exceptions. The Arabian oryx, an antelope native to the Arabian Peninsula, went extinct in the wild in the 1970s and then was reintroduced into the wild from zoo populations. The California condor breeding program, which almost certainly saved the species from extinction, includes five zoos as active partners. Black-footed ferrets and red wolves in the United States and golden lion tamarins in Brazil — all endangered, as well — have been bred at zoos for reintroduction into the wild. An estimated 20 red wolves are all that remain in the wild.

The A.Z.A. says that its members host “more than 50 reintroduction programs for species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.” Nevertheless, a vast majority of zoo animals (there are 800,000 animals of 6,000 species in the A.Z.A.’s zoos alone ) will spend their whole lives in captivity, either dying of old age after a lifetime of display or by being culled as “surplus.”

The practice of killing “surplus” animals is kept quiet by zoos, but it happens, especially in Europe. In 2014, the director of the E.A.Z.A. at the time estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 animals are euthanized in European zoos each year. (The culling of mammals specifically in E.A.Z.A. zoos is “usually not more than 200 animals per year,” the organization said.) Early in the pandemic, the Neumünster Zoo in northern Germany coolly announced an emergency plan to cope with lost revenue by feeding some animals to other animals, compressing the food chain at the zoo like an accordion, until in the worst-case scenario, only Vitus, a polar bear, would be left standing. The A.Z.A.’s policies allow for the euthanasia of animals, but the president of the association, Dan Ashe, told me, “it’s very rarely employed” by his member institutions.

Mr. Ashe, a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, suggested that learning how to breed animals contributes to conservation in the long term, even if very few animals are being released now. A day may come, he said, when we need to breed elephants or tigers or polar bears in captivity to save them from extinction. “If you don’t have people that know how to care for them, know how to breed them successfully, know how to keep them in environments where their social and psychological needs can be met, then you won’t be able to do that,” he said.

The other argument zoos commonly make is that they educate the public about animals and develop in people a conservation ethic. Having seen a majestic leopard in the zoo, the visitor becomes more willing to pay for its conservation or vote for policies that will preserve it in the wild. What Mr. Ashe wants visitors to experience when they look at the animals is a “sense of empathy for the individual animal, as well as the wild populations of that animal.”

I do not doubt that some people had their passion for a particular species, or wildlife in general, sparked by zoo experiences. I’ve heard and read some of their stories. I once overheard two schoolchildren at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington confess to each other that they had assumed that elephants were mythical animals like unicorns before seeing them in the flesh. I remember well the awe and joy on their faces, 15 years later. I’d like to think these kids, now in their early 20s, are working for a conservation organization somewhere. But there’s no unambiguous evidence that zoos are making visitors care more about conservation or take any action to support it. After all, more than 700 million people visit zoos and aquariums worldwide every year, and biodiversity is still in decline.

In a 2011 study , researchers quizzed visitors at the Cleveland, Bronx, Prospect Park and Central Park zoos about their level of environmental concern and what they thought about the animals. Those who reported “a sense of connection to the animals at the zoo” also correlated positively with general environmental concern. On the other hand, the researchers reported, “there were no significant differences in survey responses before entering an exhibit compared with those obtained as visitors were exiting.”

A 2008 study of 206 zoo visitors by some members of the same team showed that while 42 percent said that the “main purpose” of the zoo was “to teach visitors about animals and conservation,” 66 percent said that their primary reason for going was “to have an outing with friends or family,” and just 12 percent said their intention was “to learn about animals.”

The researchers also spied on hundreds of visitors’ conversations at the Bronx Zoo, the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. They found that only 27 percent of people bothered to read the signs at exhibits. More than 6,000 comments made by the visitors were recorded, nearly half of which were “purely descriptive statements that asserted a fact about the exhibit or the animal.” The researchers wrote , “In all the statements collected, no one volunteered information that would lead us to believe that they had an intention to advocate for protection of the animal or an intention to change their own behavior.”

People don’t go to zoos to learn about the biodiversity crisis or how they can help. They go to get out of the house, to get their children some fresh air, to see interesting animals. They go for the same reason people went to zoos in the 19th century: to be entertained.

A fine day out with the family might itself be justification enough for the existence of zoos if the zoo animals are all happy to be there. Alas, there’s plenty of heartbreaking evidence that many are not.

In many modern zoos, animals are well cared for, healthy and probably, for many species, content. Zookeepers are not mustache-twirling villains. They are kind people, bonded to their charges and immersed in the culture of the zoo, in which they are the good guys.

But many animals clearly show us that they do not enjoy captivity. When confined they rock, pull their hair and engage in other tics. Captive tigers pace back and forth, and in a 2014 study, researchers found that “the time devoted to pacing by a species in captivity is best predicted by the daily distances traveled in nature by the wild specimens.” It is almost as if they feel driven to patrol their territory, to hunt, to move, to walk a certain number of steps, as if they have a Fitbit in their brains.

The researchers divided the odd behaviors of captive animals into two categories: “impulsive/compulsive behaviors,” including coprophagy (eating feces), regurgitation, self-biting and mutilation, exaggerated aggressiveness and infanticide, and “stereotypies,” which are endlessly repeated movements. Elephants bob their heads over and over. Chimps pull out their own hair. Giraffes endlessly flick their tongues. Bears and cats pace. Some studies have shown that as many as 80 percent of zoo carnivores, 64 percent of zoo chimps and 85 percent of zoo elephants have displayed compulsive behaviors or stereotypies.

Elephants are particularly unhappy in zoos, given their great size, social nature and cognitive complexity. Many suffer from arthritis and other joint problems from standing on hard surfaces; elephants kept alone become desperately lonely; and all zoo elephants suffer mentally from being cooped up in tiny yards while their free-ranging cousins walk up to 50 miles a day. Zoo elephants tend to die young. At least 20 zoos in the United States have already ended their elephant exhibits in part because of ethical concerns about keeping the species captive.

Many zoos use Prozac and other psychoactive drugs on at least some of their animals to deal with the mental effects of captivity. The Los Angeles Zoo has used Celexa, an antidepressant, to control aggression in one of its chimps. Gus, a polar bear at the Central Park Zoo, was given Prozac as part of an attempt to stop him from swimming endless figure-eight laps in his tiny pool. The Toledo Zoo has dosed zebras and wildebeest with the antipsychotic haloperidol to keep them calm and has put an orangutan on Prozac. When a female gorilla named Johari kept fighting off the male she was placed with, the zoo dosed her with Prozac until she allowed him to mate with her. A 2000 survey of U.S. and Canadian zoos found that nearly half of respondents were giving their gorillas Haldol, Valium or another psychopharmaceutical drug.

Some zoo animals try to escape. Jason Hribal’s 2010 book, “Fear of the Animal Planet,” chronicles dozens of attempts. Elephants figure prominently in his book, in part because they are so big that when they escape it generally makes the news.

Mr. Hribal documented many stories of elephants making a run for it — in one case repairing to a nearby woods with a pond for a mud bath. He also found many examples of zoo elephants hurting or killing their keepers and evidence that zoos routinely downplayed or even lied about those incidents.

Elephants aren’t the only species that try to flee a zoo life. Tatiana the tiger, kept in the San Francisco Zoo, snapped one day in 2007 after three teenage boys had been taunting her. She somehow got over the 12-foot wall surrounding her 1,000-square-foot enclosure and attacked one of the teenagers, killing him. The others ran, and she pursued them, ignoring all other humans in her path. When she caught up with the boys at the cafe, she mauled them before she was shot to death by the police. Investigators found sticks and pine cones inside the exhibit, most likely thrown by the boys.

Apes are excellent at escaping. Little Joe, a gorilla, escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston twice in 2003. At the Los Angeles Zoo, a gorilla named Evelyn escaped seven times in 20 years. Apes are known for picking locks and keeping a beady eye on their captors, waiting for the day someone forgets to lock the door. An orangutan at the Omaha Zoo kept wire for lock-picking hidden in his mouth. A gorilla named Togo at the Toledo Zoo used his incredible strength to bend the bars of his cage. When the zoo replaced the bars with thick glass, he started methodically removing the putty holding it in. In the 1980s, a group of orangutans escaped several times at the San Diego Zoo. In one escape, they worked together: One held a mop handle steady while her sister climbed it to freedom. Another time, one of the orangutans, Kumang, learned how to use sticks to ground the current in the electrical wire around her enclosure. She could then climb the wire without being shocked. It is impossible to read these stories without concluding that these animals wanted out .

“I don’t see any problem with holding animals for display,” Mr. Ashe told me. “People assume that because an animal can move great distances that they would choose to do that.” If they have everything they need nearby, he argued, they would be happy with smaller territories. And it is true that the territory size of an animal like a wolf depends greatly on the density of resources and other wolves. But then there’s the pacing, the rocking. I pointed out that we can’t ask animals whether they are happy with their enclosure size. “That’s true,” he said. “There is always that element of choice that gets removed from them in a captive environment. That’s undeniable.” His justification was philosophical. In the end, he said, “we live with our own constraints.” He added, “We are all captive in some regards to social and ethical and religious and other constraints on our life and our activities.”

What if zoos stopped breeding all their animals, with the possible exception of any endangered species with a real chance of being released back into the wild? What if they sent all the animals that need really large areas or lots of freedom and socialization to refuges? With their apes, elephants, big cats, and other large and smart species gone, they could expand enclosures for the rest of the animals, concentrating on keeping them lavishly happy until their natural deaths. Eventually, the only animals on display would be a few ancient holdovers from the old menageries, animals in active conservation breeding programs and perhaps a few rescues.

Such zoos might even be merged with sanctuaries, places that take wild animals that because of injury or a lifetime of captivity cannot live in the wild. Existing refuges often do allow visitors, but their facilities are really arranged for the animals, not for the people. These refuge-zoos could become places where animals live. Display would be incidental.

Such a transformation might free up some space. What could these zoos do with it, besides enlarging enclosures? As an avid fan of botanical gardens, I humbly suggest that as the captive animals retire and die off without being replaced, these biodiversity-worshiping institutions devote more and more space to the wonderful world of plants. Properly curated and interpreted, a well-run garden can be a site for a rewarding “outing with friends or family,” a source of education for the 27 percent of people who read signs and a point of civic pride.

I’ve spent many memorable days in botanical gardens, completely swept away by the beauty of the design as well as the unending wonder of evolution — and there’s no uneasiness or guilt. When there’s a surplus, you can just have a plant sale.

Emma Marris is an environmental writer and the author of the forthcoming book “Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World.”

Photographs by Peter Fisher. Mr. Fisher is a photographer based in New York.

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How ethical are animal safaris really?

Animal safari is a bucket list favourite, but are there are drawbacks to playing paparazzi around animals?

If safari’s history is rooted in hunting, cameras have replaced the gun. Few destinations appear on travel bucket lists as much as the exploration of African parks. Seeing animals in their natural habitat is an awe-inspiring experience, laden with expectation and, rightly or wrongly, it remains one of the most enticing reasons to visit Africa. But is it ethical?

The background of safari is strongly interwoven with hunting; shooting trophy animals such as elephants or lions were considered as high status with colonialists – and consequently Theodore Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Clark Gable and Robert Redford – as a luxury yacht is Philip Green. There is, of course, a tasteless repulsiveness in swathes of white men roaming a country that didn’t belong to them, killing their animals, while the locals carried their belongings.

"If safari’s history is rooted in hunting, cameras have replaced the gun"

Now, in an era where we are more environmentally conscious than ever before, the idea of killing animals for entertainment repels us, and the idea behind safari has evolved. But the idea of it as a fantasy still stands. We still wear the same colonial-inspired khaki garb of our predecessors and we expect, over the course of our dream holiday, to see an animal. Instead of pointing a gun at an animal, we wave our phones and long lens cameras at them.

The former obviously has a more devastating effect than the other, but we are still hunting. We track them through jungles on foot, or we follow them in open-top jeeps with binoculars. We surround them with iPhones as they eat or climb up trees, or sleep with their families. In Africa, we become the paparazzi.

“There’s a gut instinct because to be up close to any of these beautiful animals is awe-inspiring, and it’s something people 10 years ago wouldn’t have even questioned,” says Peta’s Corporate Project Director Yvonne Taylor. “But now, people are questioning, ‘was that right? Why were those animals so happy to sit there and have their photos taken?’ It’s a question of how did that animal become so relaxed around its predator.”

Animal tracking – be it gorillas, lions or wild dogs – has risen with tourism’s demand for a more authentic travel experience. Tourists in small groups join guides and rangers in natural parks, jungle and forests to follow animals that have been habituated, ie tamed to be comfortable around humans. Peta reports the number of companies offering activities that use animals as entertainment has fallen, but that tracking could fall under the same umbrella.

“It’s not only unnatural, but it’s also unsafe to habituate an animal,” says Taylor. “These are wild animals; no matter how long they’ve been in captivity or have been around humans, they still retain a natural instinct. Even animals who have been born and bred in captivity can still attack or kill people in these facilities. This is not something working in their best interest. If the animal’s best interest is to live and full and natural life in the wild, it’s not to try and have them accustomed to human behaviour so that tourists can take selfies.”

"If the animal’s best interest is to live a full life in the wild, it’s not to try and accustom them to human behaviour so that tourists can take selfies"

Another challenge facing wildlife safari is the risk that the animals have in contracting human illnesses. While, in the case of game drives, humans are kept at a distance from the animals, some organisations offer activities where visitors can take up close-up pictures with them, and sometimes even touching them. There have been examples where docile lions posing with humans were found to have been drugged, or elephants who have been tamed via “spirit crushing means”, as Taylor says, but – as safari companies become more ethical in terms of animal treatment – one if the key issues is how to prevent the wildlife from contracting human illnesses.

Bwindi Field Office Manager and Community Health Field Officer Alex Ngabirano, who has been working in the Ugandan field for 12 years, says it’s certainly a problem that needs to be addressed.

“Due to close genetic relatedness, gorillas are at risk of contracting human pathogens,” he told us, adding that tourists are not permitted to track gorillas when they’re sick. “Common colds are among the illnesses and that’s why we recommend at least to keep seven metres away while viewing gorillas.”

The ethics of safari isn’t a clear-cut issue. Both Taylor and Ngabirano agree that responsible safari tourism is crucial to animal protection and survival, and vastly improves the economy of local communities. Ngabirano also stresses that animal habituation, specifically in gorillas, is a sensitively handled issue that takes place over the course of a year. The animals are left in their natural surroundings, and pursue their lives in the most natural way possible.

“Habituation is a process,” he says, “whereby the gorillas are slowly tamed to generate revenue for sustainability of conservation. It also improves the livelihoods of communities living around protected forests.”

Ultimately, he says, it comes down to whether or not tourists abide by protocol – staying the advised distance from the wildlife, avoiding flash photography, avoiding human contact, keeping a low voice and only spending a limited hour with any animal so as not to cause them any stress. Small groups are also advised to prevent stress - the Uganda Wildlife Authority recommends only eight tourists for tracking a gorilla family each day “as to manage their anxiety levels”.

The impact that safari has on national African economies cannot be underestimated. Travel and tourism – largely driven by safari - in Africa is booming, growing 5.6% in 2018 compared to the global average of 3.9% and the broader African economy rate of 3.2%. This places Africa as the second-fastest growing tourism region behind only Asia-Pacific. In Uganda alone, tourism accounted for 10 per cent of the GDP.

Praveen Moman, who grew up in Uganda, established Volcanoes Safaris in 1997, four luxury lodges in Rwanda and Uganda near the great ape parks, Virunga, Mount Gahinga, Bwindi and Kyambura. His goal was to use tourism to boost and empower local communities, as well as conserving and protecting the wildlife.

"If these animals in the forest or savannah do not have economic value, then why should anyone support their existence?"

He says that without the economic benefits of safari tourism, then local communities are unlikely to see the advantages of looking after the animals, especially when they so often roam into neighbouring villages and eat from their farms, and therefore damaging their livelihoods.

“If you are going to try to save the plains, savannahs and the wildlife of Africa, you have to connect then to an economic value,” he explained. “People like us, who are privileged in the world, who are able to buy a gorilla permit, or a game drive are helping those parks. That money will directly and indirectly go back to those communities.

“If these animals in the forest or savannah do not have economic value, then why should anyone support their existence?” he posits. “We can support it because we’re privileged, but it’s a luxury to be able to do that. Local people and governments do not have that privilege. Unless you link it to the economic supply chain, the local community might say, ‘this park is an inconvenience to us, let’s clear the bush and use it for local farming. If we can farm, we can afford to feed our kids.’ It’s deeply important these things produce money for local people.”

He also added that the animal safari has led to a fall in poaching, which often stems from poverty. “If you have limited amounts of money and you want meat and the beef in the market is x amount of dollars or x pounds a kilo, and you can kill a hippo, buffalo or something, yourself it’ll be much cheaper. Animals can feed you,” he says. “Higher up the chain, if you are connected to ivory smuggling for example, it can produce a lot of money. Tourism connects the wildlife and the area to the wealth of the world. International tourists come, they pay money to go on a game drive and to enter a park, they stay in a lodge nearby, the lodge employs local people… If you don’t have that, then the temptation is to look for other ways of finding value from those animals.”

"It’s very important to connect to the community and not to just have luxury ghettos"

A percentage of every gorilla permit sold in Uganda and Rwanda (and prices ranch from $700 and $1500 depending on what country you’re in), goes towards the local community and the remainder goes back in the respective government, who in turn look after the parks, pay the rangers, anti-poaching patrols, fund any community work and park management.

“If you left the gorillas in the jungle without habituation, and without economic value, would they survive?” asks Moman. “This is where conservation has to pay for itself. If it’s isn't and you just put it on a pedestal, the animals’ survival is questionable.”

The benefits of safari tourism on the locals runs beyond making money. Many lodges run community projects that empower and offer career opportunities for nearby residents. Volcanoes Safaris, for example, runs a bar and restaurant in the neighbouring village, attached to its Bwindi outpost, which serves as a hospitality training institution for local disadvantaged youths.

At its Kyambura Lodge, Volcanoes operates a women’s coffee cooperative, a community-based initiative designed to provide vocational training to women and an alternative, but sustainable, source of income, as well as a café that employs local youths, both male and female, who are disadvantaged as a result of the loss of parents, HIV/AIDS, or physical or mental disabilities. The company also restored the local wetlands, which was previously used as an illegal brick works, now attracting over 200 species of birds, different mammals and primates. It’s also used to train members of the community in birding and guiding.

“It’s very important to connect to the community and not to just have luxury ghettos,” he says. We don’t want to build things that are separate from our world. We want to be connected to it and that means people and animals. We’ve seen a number of people who come up within our own management and some whom have gone onto university or the children of staff who have onto university. Advancement has happened in terms of being connected to local lodges.”

Ultimately, it comes down to doing your research. Peta’s Taylor says steer clear of any companies that guarantee seeing animals up close.

“No reputable establishment that gives animals anything close to a normal life would ever make promises like that,” she says. “Photo opportunities with animals, giving them rides or bathing with animals – these aren’t normal activities for animals, even ones born in captivity. So, before you visit an establishment, make sure you look at the activities they offer and at comments on what other animal organisations or media outlets have reported about the park.”

“Read online information carefully and always choose established operators,” says Moman. “Ask why some drives are so much cheaper than another? Be responsible.”

Three nights at Volcanoes Safaris Kyambura Gorge and three nights at Bwindi Lodge including a gorilla trek, chimp trek and Kazinga Channel Boat cruise including all meals, drinks, transfers, internal flights and international flights on Kenya Airways from Heathrow would cost from £5,300 per person with Africa Odyssey.

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Thailand zoo horror revealed in sickening snaps showing emaciated animals shackled in tiny cages

Brit photographer exposes what he dubs as ‘wildlife house of horrors’ at Pata and Phuket zoos while tourists

• Patrick Knox
• Published : 11:04, 9 Apr 2018
• Updated : 0:11, 10 Apr 2018

THESE heartbreaking images of zoo animals caged after being exploited in sick shows are enough to shock anyone. 

The inhabitants of these cages are there solely to be watched by tourists, which lays bare the sheer cruelty that passes for entertainment in Thailand.

Orangutans are shown being forced to fight in boxing rings with gloves strapped to their hands, an elephant performs tricks on a stone stage and then afterwards they are locked up with the others in hellish conditions. 

Environmental photojournalist Aaron Gekoski witnessed the shows on a tour of the country's zoos and is now campaigning for more restrictions over the industry.

Safari World near capital Bangkok, Thailand, put on the orangutan boxing bouts for crowds of holidaymakers to watch the animals battle it out in the ring.

The mocked up fighters are put in gloves and shorts while female apes are dressed up as ring girls in bikinis and miniskirts.

He also saw the animals egged on by their handlers to perform a number of stunts on the stage before the fighting begins.

Aaron, 37, said: “The orangutans are forced into hideous pantomime routines.

“For some reason, people found it funny watching these beautiful, sentient, intelligent animals having their pants pulled down or pretending to fight each other.

“The orangutans are not doing it because they want to, they are doing it because they are forced to.

“One can only imagine how these animals were trained in order to perform like this.”

But describing the show Safari World website unashamedly writes: “Who could miss the world’s first and only orangutan boxing show .. starring the funniest and hairiest champions of the Olympics?

“Whether hanging upside down or rightside up be sure to hang out with the orangutans at Safari World.”

Aaron has been documenting Thailand’s wildlife tourism industry and claims more than half a million animals worldwide can be subjected to horrific abuse in order to entertain.

He also witnessed apparent animal abuse in Pata Zoo and Phuket Zoo.

 Aaron added: “What I witnessed was shocking and incredibly distressing.

“It really was a wildlife house of horrors.

“Posing for a tiger selfie, riding on the back of an elephant, watching dolphin shows: over 100 million visit cruel wildlife tourism attractions every

It really was a wildlife house of horrors Environmental photojournalist Aaron Gekoski

“Yet behind the shows and performances lies a dark side to the industry.

“We saw grossly overweight or underweight orangutans kept in tiny cages or forced to box each other.

"A gorilla was living in a filthy ‘cell’ at the top of a shopping mall, drugged elephants shackled to chains by night and then made to ‘dance’ or play football all day and emaciated tigers kept on tiny chains so they could barely move.

"Monkeys were dressed up, yanked around on leads and made to ride bikes."

Aaron said: “Many animals are beaten and mistreated and have their spirits broken by handlers, rendering them completely submissive.

“Yet most tourists aren’t aware of the abuse that takes place or how poor the quality of life is for many captive animals.”

British-born Aaron, a winner at this year's wildlife photographer of the year, now plans to return to Thailand to shoot a documentary exposing the

alleged abuses and is crowdfunding his next visit.

He said: “A long-term goal is to create a global platform so tourists can ‘raise the red flag’ on abusive operators by posting photos, videos and reviews - a little like Trip Advisor, but focused on Wildlife Tourism.

“At the moment, it’s hard to get reliable information online and research has shown that 80 per cent of visitors leave positive reviews on Tripadvisor for venues that are treating animals cruelly.

“Change is possible when people vote with their feet and don’t visit these places."

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Animal rights groups slammed the exploitation of the orangutans.

Chris Draper, Head of Animal Welfare & Captivity at the Born Free Foundation, said: "These images depict the exploitative and utterly disrespectful use of wild animals, being forced to entertain the ill-informed and mindless.”

The Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, which have been fighting against the Far East country’s industry for 17 years, said: “Thailand has numerous zoos and other attractions which clearly exploit both wild and domestic animals.

“Each attraction has a different history and some are operating illegally, and obtaining animals illegally.

“This is clearly visible in a well know Bangkok zoo I visited myself last week, where I witnessed huge numbers of infant chimpanzees and orangutans.”

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Rhino undergoes world's 1st surgery for fractured leg at England’s Knowsley Safari

Young rhino undergoes world-first surgery for broken leg.

A young rhino at England's Knowsley Safari underwent surgery for a fractured leg, marking what is believed to be the first procedure of its kind. (Credit: Knowsley Safari via Storyful)

A rhino in England underwent the world's first surgery for a fractured leg. 

The young resident rhino is part of England’s Knowsley Safari. 

Safari officials said they noticed the white southern rhino, Amara, walking with a "mysterious limp" in 2022. The rhino weighs more than 1,700 pounds. 

"Amara’s initial treatment involved rest and pain relief. However, after further investigation, we brought in equine surgeons from the University of Liverpool for an advanced diagnosis. Using radiographs, the team discovered a rare and unusual fracture in her ulna, located near the wrist joint. To our surprise, no documentation or case studies existed worldwide for a rhino with this type of injury," park officials said in a news release. 

A team of more than 10 people, including veterinarians, specialist surgeons, and anesthetists, put together a plan and performed "five hours of intricate keyhole surgery inside Amara’s enclosure" while the animal was under anesthesia, Knowsley Safari said.

Amara was then fitted with a cast and spent time recovering inside her enclosure with her mother.

Amara’s cast was finally removed in Ma., Knowsley Safari said that 27 weeks had passed between the initial fracture and her recovery.

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‘Circus Can and Should Come Without Animals,’ PETA Urges Blaisdell Center

20 Years After Elephant Tyke’s Rampage and Death by Gunfire, Animal-Free Circuses Are Safe and Spectacular

For Immediate Release: August 5, 2014

Contact: David Perle 202-483-7382

PETA sent a letter this morning calling on the Neal S. Blaisdell Center and its management to ensure that when the Moscow International Circus performs at the center in October, it features only willing human performers, not imported wildlife. The request comes just weeks before the 20 th anniversary of the death of the elephant Tyke, who ran amok before a circus performance at the Blaisdell Center, stomping on and killing a trainer and injuring a groom and 12 spectators. Tyke was shot to death after police fired 86 shots into her. Witnesses required grief counseling after watching her suffer, bellowing and dying on the street.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—has also posted an action alert on its popular website asking visitors to write to the Blaisdell Center to point out that wild animals—including big cats, which the circus has said it intends to use—suffer greatly when they’re caged and chained, shipped around the world, separated from their loved ones and all that is natural and important to them, and beaten into performing circus tricks. Big-cat acts also pose a risk to the public—on average, captive big cats in the U.S. kill one person every year and injure 10 more.

“On that tragic day 20 years ago when Tyke killed her trainer out of rage and frustration and was gunned down by police, everyone should have learned that forcing wild animals to perform in circuses is cruel and dangerous,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA urges the Blaisdell Center to make sure that the Moscow International Circus’ performances are safe, family-friendly, and animal-free.”

For more information, please visit PETA.org .

PETA’s letter to the Blaisdell Center follows.

August 5, 2014

John C. Fuhrmann, Events and Services Manager Neal S. Blaisdell Center

Cornell “Tuffy” Nicholas, Producer Moscow International Circus

Dear Mr. Fuhrmann and Mr. Nicholas:

I am writing to you to follow up and to urge you again to leave all wild animal acts out of the Moscow International Circus, which is scheduled to perform at the infamous Neal S. Blaisdell Center in October . While we understand that bears and elephants won’t be forced to perform, all wild animals used in circuses are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them—and pose a serious public safety risk.

The tiger attack on Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy is a stark reminder that, regardless of a handlers’ experience or “expertise,” wild animals remain unpredictable. On average, captive big cats in the United States kill one person every year and injure 10 more. Last November, the head keeper of a wild-cat facility in Oregon was killed by a big cat. In October, a worker at a roadside zoo in Oklahoma was mauled by a tiger and airlifted to a hospital, where she had to have her arm reattached. And in April, a woman came face to face with a tiger in a women’s bathroom after the animal escaped from trainers during a Shrine circus performance in Kansas.

Big cats do not naturally jump through rings of fire or balance on their hind legs. They are beaten into submission and are forced under the threat of punishment to perform these unnatural and confusing tricks. Whips, tight collars, muzzles, and sedation are often used to restrict the animals, and they are punched, kicked, whipped, and screamed at when “uncooperative.” When these intelligent, frustrated animals rebel against this abuse, they attack their trainers and sometimes lash out at bystanders.

The Moscow International Circus is well-recognized for its animal-free acts. Its human contortionists, gymnasts, and aerial acts could easily join the ranks of other highly admirable and lucrative animal-free circuses that are traveling the globe. Performing at the Blaisdell Center without animals would make a lasting impression, as a public display of respect for the fallen elephant Tyke and the tragedy surrounding that heartbreaking day 20 years ago. We would be thrilled to share the news of your decision to keep all wild animal acts out of your show. PETA’s members are awaiting an update.

Very truly yours,

Delcianna Winders, Esq. Deputy General Counsel | Captive Animal Law Enforcement

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“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights? ”

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind

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