Animals under permanent lockdown

As we look forward to a new year, now is the time to remind everyone that having fun should never include harming or exploiting animals.

There’s growing recognition that keeping animals confined to cramped enclosures for the public’s amusement is ethically indefensible. Animals like those at the Dehiwala National Zoo are in lockdown for life and have no choice concerning their food, mates, or living companions. Reptiles such as snakes at Snake Farm in Matara, whom the zoo allows visitors to touch, shun contact with humans, and being held, touched, petted, or passed around is stressful to them and leaves them prone to illness and injury.

Elephants used for entertainment in Sri Lanka spend most of their lives in chains, living in fear of being prodded with sharp metal-tipped weapons. Tourists who pay to ride or bathe an elephant are responsible for this cycle of abuse. Elephants can also spread tuberculosis without ever exhibiting symptoms, just as humans can spread the novel coronavirus without realising that they have it. Elephants can transmit the disease even in the absence of direct contact with humans. Many handlers don’t know whether the ones they exploit have contracted it, while others know but aren’t willing to quarantine and treat them. When these infected animals are forced to work at crowded festivals or give rides, they come into close contact with many humans and other elephants, exposing all of them to the disease. Any facility that currently keeps these animals in captivity should use this time to transform its operation into a genuine sanctuary, where elephants aren’t exploited for human entertainment. All signs show this is what the future of tourism will look like.

We must be vigilant in choosing our activities and help animals in captivity by never visiting any place that uses them for human entertainment, in Sri Lanka or abroad. When people start travelling again, visits to zoos, aquariums, animal circuses, attractions offering elephant rides or tiger petting, or “swim with dolphins” excursions should be left off travel itineraries.

Among all the lessons that we’re learning from the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope one of them is to be more compassionate. By speaking out against injustice – simply by never buying a ticket to places that exploit animals – we can acknowledge that all sentient beings deserve to live free from domination and abuse.

Jason Baker,

Senior Vice President,

PETA Asia Hong Kong