As a charity dedicated to the health and welfare of working animals in developing countries, holidaymakers often turn to us to find and treat the animals they have seen being mistreated. Unfortunately it is rarely that simple. Many holidaymakers do not know where exactly they saw the abuse; we’re often told an animal is somewhere on a 100-mile stretch of road, or they write to tell us about animals being mistreated in countries such as Spain or Greece where we do not operate.
We know that veterinary nurses also hear horror stories from clients who have seen animals mistreated on holiday and have not known how or whether to intervene. We were recently contacted by a veterinary nurse who was so upset about seeing dehydrated horses being used to pull tourist carriages in Majorca, that she decided not to leave her resort again.
Experiences like this are far too commonplace, and so this year we commissioned a YouGov* survey of British adults’ experiences of seeing animal mistreatment abroad. We wanted to gather evidence of just how widespread the problem is and begin to develop a programme to help empower holidaymakers to act.
The research found that over one in five British adults (22%) have seen animals mistreated when on holiday overseas, but over three-quarters of these holidaymakers (77%) made no attempt to report the most recent incident of mistreatment that they saw. We were astonished that as a nation of animal lovers so many people were doing nothing about mistreatment. But the survey had an answer for that too — 89% of British adults would not know how to go about reporting the mistreatment of an animal in any country abroad.
In addition, the majority of holidaymakers who have seen animals mistreated abroad (71%) say that the animals involved were those used in the tourism industry. Incredibly the survey also found that over half of British adults (52%) say that if they saw an animal being mistreated abroad on holiday it would put them off ever visiting that country again.
SPANA knows just how important the tourism industry is to economies in developing countries. A horse, donkey or camel working in the tourism industry can support the livelihood of a whole family. Therefore we don’t want people to be put off from visiting a country for fear of witnessing animal mistreatment; we want them to feel empowered to change animal welfare standards for the better.
To address this, SPANA has released its first ever ethical animal tourism advice: the Holiday Hooves Guide. The first part of the guide provides advice for tourists who want to go on activities like camel safaris or horse-carriage rides on how to choose healthy-looking animals. Common problems for tourism animals abroad include lameness, respiratory disease, malnourishment, wounds from ill-fitting equipment, ectoparasites, endoparasites and overloading. The Holiday Hooves Guide includes information that is simple and easy for people without a veterinary background to understand; such as avoid animals with prominent hip or backbones as they may be malnourished, and avoid animals with wounds around their saddle, noseband or harness as they may be wearing badly-fitting or improper equipment.
The remainder of the guide includes tips about what to do immediately if you see an animal being mistreated abroad (ask your hotel or holiday representative to phone a vet, but be aware that they might ask for payment), and to lobby for change when you get home by writing to the country’s tourism board about what you saw and how as a tourist you do not expect to see animals treated this way.
Unlike the UK’s stringent measures, most countries have little or no animal welfare legislation in place. But through tourists lobbying for change we have had success in Marrakech, where the city’s carriage horses are now required by law to visit the SPANA centre for a free health check three times a year. We are currently establishing a similar cart horse legislation system in Touzeur, Tunisia. For more information visit spana.org/tourism or you can also request a SPANA Vet Practice Talk Pack at spana.org/vets.