Sometime in the near future, we hope to be able to resume travelling again, on a scale similar to what we’d become accustomed to prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that happens, however, we urge you to take note of booking options available to you if, like many people, you care about your impact on the well-being of other species. These can empower you to take advantage of consumer choices which can remove, or at least limit, the negative consequences of our interactions with animals. They can also reward good behaviour by the agencies we do business with.
You’ll want to make sure that there are no cetaceans forcibly held at or near the places you’ll visit, or any of the resorts you’ll be financially supporting with your patronage. You can use CetaBase – https://www.cetabase.org/– or really just a quick Google search to determine whether the hotel you’ll be staying at keeps captive dolphins, or whether any of the stops in your travel package do the same. You can also check to see whether a hotel or airline you plan to use has any partnerships with nearby captive facilities – something which can be quite common at many popular tourist destinations.
If you’ll be using one of the major travel sites online to book your trip, we ask that you use one that’s already made the responsible business decision to no longer offer bookings to marine parks and aquariums that have captive dolphins. Two of the major ones are Virgin Holidays and TripAdvisor. That makes either of these companies a far better option than, say, Expedia.
Virgin Holidays ended its sales and promotions of tourist attractions that involve live cetaceans as the latest step in its journey to end the use of captives for our entertainment. In 2017 they’d entered into an agreement to support a dolphin sanctuary project in Baltimore. More recently, they’ve been in an active partnership with the World Cetacean Alliance to “support its new Guidelines for Responsible Whale and Dolphin Watching, providing global workshops for local boat tour operators”.
Similarly, TripAdvisor stopped selling tickets to captive wild animal acts including, of course, whale and dolphin shows. While their policy does allow for some exceptions, it nevertheless represents a huge step forward in addressing the main driving force behind the injustice of captivity, which is the public demand for shows. According to Dolphin Project’s Ric O’Barry, “This is great news. TripAdvisor did the responsible thing, putting compassion over profit. We hope other travel agencies will follow their lead and stop sending tourists to dolphinariums.”
We’re now waiting for Expedia and TUI to step up, and to make the decision that this is the responsible thing to do. We can influence that by choosing not to use their platforms in the meantime, and by telling them why.
Below is a list of some of the larger booking sites that continue to sell admission tickets to captive dolphin facilities.
- CityPass
- Costco Travel
- Expedia (and Travelocity, which is owned by Expedia)
- Get Away Today
- Groupon
- Klook
- Orbitz
- Smart Destinations
- Tripster
- Undercover Tourist
Rather than use these services, you can instead look for ways to book directly. It’s also tremendously helpful if you take the time to let them know why they won’t have your business until this is resolved. Just a quick email will do the trick, and you’ll be doing a tremendous service to captive dolphins. It also lets these companies know that you are an educated consumer. Remember that your concerns will be taken most seriously if you remain respectful when voicing them.
A sample message follows, but certainly feel free to insert any of your own travel experiences, as these can make your communication that much more persuasive.
Dear (company),
I have been a customer of yours for many years (or used your website to book my vacations on a number of occasions), but would like you to know why I will no longer be doing so for the time being. I was very saddened to realize that your company continues to promote and sell admission to marine parks and aquariums that use captive whales and dolphins for entertainment. As we’ve come to understand them better, it’s become abundantly clear that these animals possess a sophisticated intelligence, both cognitive and social. Marine mammal biologists now recognize that not only can whales and dolphins not thrive in captivity, their lifespans are considerably shortened relative to their counterparts in the wild. Further, the evidence is clear that they suffer tremendously from the experience of being separated from their pods, and confined to artificial environments no more than 1/200,000th of their natural ranges. We simply don’t have the right to hold them in captivity for the purposes of our entertainment. Therefore, I regret that I will stop using your service, until your company joins others in the industry who’ve chosen to discontinue promoting these archaic and cruel forms of entertainment. I hope you’ll consider adopting a similar policy for your company. I’ve found your site (helpful, easy to use, efficient, etc.) and would very much like to resume using it to book my vacations when that happens.
Thank you,
(Your Name)
One last thing. Remember when you travel that the regulations governing our interactions with other life will not necessarily reflect the standards you may have come to expect in your own country. As a result, it can be exceedingly easy to contribute to harm without knowing you’ve done so until it’s too late. Easy enough to avoid the obvious ones, like bullfights for example, but with others the cruelty can be much less obvious. Ask questions, and do your research online ahead of time. Countless animals around the world are affected by these activities, from donkeys carrying tourists under a hot sun, to tiger cubs used in selfies, to dancing bears and elephant rides.
If you have disposable income that allows you to travel, the power you have as a consumer really can effect better outcomes for countless individual animals out there. We hope you’ll choose to use that power wisely.
For The Orca’s Voice,
The Canadian Cetacean Alliance Team
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