ElephantVoices shared: Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka is an establishment of dubious merit. The treatment of elephants there has led to a petition on avaaz - tinyurl/qhcrg6a. The petition makes it sound as though the baby elephants are tied up all day. Though they are not, they are taken from their mothers and, instead tied up during feeding times so that people may bottle feed them, take their pictures and so forth. You don’t need to have much experience with elephants to rea...lise that they to satisfy the expectations of ignorant visitors are having a miserable time - distress calls are frequent. Pinnawela is under the direction of the #Dehiwala Zoo. We have written to the Dehiwala Zoo and about them on #ElephantVoices due to the appalling conditions their elephants are kept under. It is, unfortunately, difficult to see that they will give up the “entertainment” activities at Pinnawela, which is a money-making tourist draw. What you can each do, through the above linked petition and through other channels, is to voice your concern. You can also do that through travel sites like TripAdvisor. If the Dehiwala Zoo understands that people do not like what they see, and drop Dehiwala and Pinnawela from their itineraries, just maybe they will change. Our colleague Shermin de Silva has created the educational site linked, which we recommend you to go through and share with friends planning to see Asian elephants in Sri Lanka, Thailand and elsewhere. Thank you! asianelephantresource.webs/ethical-tourism
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 05:06:12 +0000
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