Dolphin and elephant tourism could be on the endangered list. Britain’s second-biggest travel company is dropping many of its tours to animal attractions because they do not meet its welfare standards.
A damning independent report commissioned by Thomas Cook found dolphins with badly damaged skin, heavily chained elephants showing distress signs and other elephants forced to spin hoops, stand on small platforms and take part in a “tug-of- war”.
The audit of 25 attractions by assessment company Global Spirit found that 16 did not meet the minimum standards for welfare set out by Abta, the UK travel industry trade body.
Thomas Cook instructed its staff yesterday to stop selling tickets to those attractions. Peter Fankhauser, the company’s chief executive, said: “Our industry has not changed