Exploiting Animals
BY SUSAN GOLDBERG PHOTOGRAPH BY KIRSTEN LUCEWILDLIFE
WATCHJUNE | FROM THE EDITOR
PEOPLE LOVE ANIMALS. Nowhere is
that more apparent than at National
Geographic, where photos of animals
are among the most “liked” by our
Insta gram followers, stories about
animals drive traffic on our website,
and animals are prominent in the
pages of our magazine.
But this love of animals can often
lead people, unwittingly, to hurt them.
This month we explore the thriving
industry of wildlife tourism—a way for
people to appreciate and support ani-
mals when it’s done appropriately but
an exploitative business with terrible
consequences when it’s not.
We sent reporter Natasha Daly and
photographer Kirsten Luce around
the world to investigate the lives of
captive animals once the selfie-takingtourists go home. What they found will
break your heart. In some attractions
with unscrupulous operators, tour-
ists have no idea the animals they’re
joyously interacting with have been
abused. They “don’t know that ... the
elephants give rides and perform tricks
without harming people only because
they’ve been ‘broken’ as babies,” Daly
writes. “Or that the Amazonian sloths
taken illegally from the jungle often
die within weeks of being in captivity.”
Even more shocking is her discovery
that some elephants at an “eco” resort
in Thailand—where customers see ani-
mals roaming a property unchained—
are the same elephants that, at another
attraction just a few miles away, give
rides and do tricks, sometimes prod-
ded by a sharp metal hook.
Wildlife-encounter tourism is not
new. But examining it is all the more
urgent today because of social media.
Who among us would not want to cud-
dle a baby tiger, memorialized by a
shareable photo? That is, until we find
out the reality: Cubs are taken from
their mothers days after birth, so the
mothers can quickly be bred again.
And no one quite knows what happens
to those precious baby tigers once they
become unruly teenagers.
As our reporting found, too often
this industry takes advantage of peo-
ple’s love of animals even as it exploits
them for profit from birth to death.
With this month’s package of sto-
ries on animal welfare and continuing
coverage by our Wildlife Watch team,
we hope this complicated, important
topic gets the attention it deserves.
That’s the first step toward securing
a truly happy ending for the animals.
Thank you for reading National
Geographic. jPlai Thong Bai is about a half
century old and famous in
Thailand from Chang beer
commercials. When rented
out for festivals or parties, he’s
often painted with designs,
some still visible above. In
the enclosure where he lives,
a chain hobbles his front legs.Support the investigative
journalism of Wildlife
Watch by donating to the
National Geographic Soci-
ety’s Illegal Wildlife Trade
project: donate.ngs.org/
wildlife-watch