The effects of the coronavirus crisis are being felt hard across Asia’s tourism industry, where elephant-friendly venues are facing collapse forcing World Animal Protection to act and launch an urgent appeal to help over 150 elephants.
The appeal aims to provide food, medicine and venue running costs in the short term across eleven struggling, elephant-friendly venues in Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia and Laos.
World Animal Protection Global Head of Wildlife, Audrey Mealia, said “As the world is in lockdown and the tourism industry dries up, wild animals – that should never have been in captivity in the first place – could suffer most, left abandoned, neglected and starving.”
“It would be heart-breaking to accept that this global crisis could sacrifice the new-found freedom these elephants are experiencing at these high-welfare venues.”
Mealia acknowledged that these are challenging times, adding that the work to protect wild animals never stops.
“Wild animals should not be the forgotten victims of this pandemic.”
Caring for captive elephants doesn’t come cheap, as they require about 10% of their body weight in food every day – that’s up to 400kg of grass, leaves, fruits and vegetables, which needs to be paid for and transported.
“While this is an extremely uncertain time for captive elephants in Asia, it also provides an opportunity for the tourism industry to rebuild responsibly post-pandemic,” she said.
World Animal Protection has previously supported the transition of venues including ChangChill and Following Giants in Thailand to become high welfare and elephant friendly – representing the potential for future responsible tourism.
“Now is the time for the tourism industry to take responsibility and clean up its act to end the exploitation of wild animals forever.”
Find out more here and how you can help, visit worldanimalprotection.org.au/keepthemwild
