Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be saddened people still do these things on holiday?

418 replies

lastqueenofscotland · 07/09/2019 10:10

Had a summer of holidays pictures on social media m which had included a lot of people
Swimming with dolphins
Going to sea world in Orlando
Posing with drugged up tigers for pictures
Riding elephants in Thailand

So on and so forth. In an age where information about the poor treatment of these animals is so well known and freely available AIBU to feel a bit sad about it.
I also want to publicly call them out... but that won’t go well.

OP posts:
LiveInAHidingPlace · 08/09/2019 13:15

"But it’s ok because the dogs look happy, just like the dolphins do."

No it's ok because dogs have been domesticated over literally thousands of years.

Maybe 10,000 years ago it would have been ethically questionable but now dogs prefer, instinctively, to be around humans.

otterturk · 08/09/2019 13:20

YANBU. I'm travelling around Asia for a year - not just SE - because I was heading for a work related breakdown and every time I see elephant riding adverts I feel sick and angry. It's usually by gap year idiots of Chinese tourists, the former wearing elephant print harem trousers. Twats.

sashh · 08/09/2019 13:39

CornedBeef451

OK that's Monkey Mia ff the list, it will cost less to get to NI or Scotland, actually maybe I could do both.

1300cakes · 08/09/2019 14:05

The thing is with cats and dogs, they threw their lot in with us a long time ago. 40 000 years in the case of dogs, 5-10 000 years in the case of cats. Especially for dogs, they are a domesticated species that bare little relation to their wild ancestors. Of course there are many ethical problems with pet ownership but they are mostly different issues.

Abouttimemum · 08/09/2019 14:10

Well it’s ok then of it’s been that way for a long time....
Utterly ridiculous. You can’t be angry about keeping some animals in captivity and not others. Just because you look after them doesn’t make it any different.

PookieDo · 08/09/2019 14:19

I feel really strongly about puppy farming as much as I do captive dolphins. We are breeding too many dogs, too cruelly and vainly, for profit. Dog breeding is out of control and too many dogs are in shelters. Dogs bred with health problems are cruel. I would never buy a puppy EVER.

But there is a huge difference between a small domesticated animal and an absolutely gigantic wild animal that needs space to roam or swim. You can’t go into a dog shelter and rehabilitate them into the wild, but no one is taking them from their natural habitat and caging them up, just because it happened with dogs doesn’t mean we should do it do dolphins as well - 2 wrongs doesn’t make a right

There is a difference between giving a dog a home rather than being in a shelter and buying a fashionable puppy from a back street breeder. I will never line the pockets of a puppy farm

There are always unethical ways of looking at both sides of the subject. I don’t believe you can completely blanket all domesticated pet owners as hypocrites.

bluebluezoo · 08/09/2019 14:32

I also feel the same about people who holiday in places like Dubai

Get their cheap, luxury holiday in the sun. Or the job in the luxury compound. Who cares if it’s built on slavery and human rights transgressions.

underneaththeash · 08/09/2019 14:37

People have ridden on elephants though for 1000's of years. What's the difference between that and a horse?

I'd happily sit on an elephant or swim with a dolphin, but I won't pay to line to pockets of any misogynistic, racist autocracy.

Funghi · 08/09/2019 14:40

underneaththeash there’s just no hope for people like you. No amount of explanation, facts and figures would make a difference to such a level of ignorance.

LiveInAHidingPlace · 08/09/2019 14:42

"Well it’s ok then of it’s been that way for a long time..."

I don't think you understand evolution.

Dogs have lived beside humans for so long that they now are fundamentally predisposed to enjoying spending time with us. They are literally happier when they are near humans.

That's not to say there are no ethical issues with pet ownership but it is a completely different issue to the one at hand.

Hoolihan · 08/09/2019 14:45

@WatchingTheMoon excellent post.

DontJustDoItBnQItInTheStore · 08/09/2019 15:16

This thread has some real idiocy on display.

Dogs have been domesticated for years but its obviously pretty easy to create a home environment for a dog that is a good quality of life. A dog is considerably smaller than an orca, dolphin or an elephant. Orcas are huge and like dolphins swim for miles a day. Elephants are also massive and used to roaming.

Putting these kind of animals in compounds is really cruel. Particularly the whales and dolphins because they are in smooth sided swimming pools with literally nothing of interest to chase or look at or socially engage with. Elephants with a chain round their leg in a concrete bunker is just as terrible.

Dogs in the wild won't keep going for miles and miles - they will run for a bit in short bursts after prey and then stop. Access to an open field or a park where they can run can adequately replicate that and involves a natural and changing environment - not like an enclosure or a tank.

Lots of self deluded posters here.

underneaththeash · 08/09/2019 15:43

@Funghi - why? I have no intention of ever visiting a county like Dubai or Saudi (or the Maldives). Turning a blind eye to countries that exploit people and ignore the rights of half their population is appalling.

LolaSmiles · 08/09/2019 15:55

Lots of self deluded posters here
Deluded or defensive?

Some posts very much feel like "you people have questioned the ethics of my holidays... And I don't like it... So ... So... I'm going to make comparisons that aren't valid comparisons to prove that you're a hypocrite or a bad person too".

Funghi · 08/09/2019 16:01

People have ridden on elephants though for 1000's of years. What's the difference between that and a horse? I’d happily sit on an elephant or swim with a dolphin

That’s why.

tequilasunrises · 08/09/2019 16:27

@underneaththeash

www.travelfordifference.com/truth-behind-riding-elephants/

Please read this then come back and say you would happily ride an elephant.

DoctorAllcome · 08/09/2019 16:39

Yes of course, when white people domesticate and ride on horses, it’s all right. Abuse is seen as minority isolated cases. Halo

But when brown people domesticate and ride on elephants...cases of abuse mean that it’s apparently proof it’s a terrible cruel practice in ALL cases. Hmm

The bias seen here against domesticated elephants has nothing to do with objective facts and everything to with racial and cultural prejudice.

LolaSmiles · 08/09/2019 16:47

The domestication of one animal thousands of years ago is not the same as taking non-domesticated wild animals today and making an unethical tourist trade.

Of course the discussion is clearly losing mileage because now we've hit the point of if you don't agree with me you're racist

DoctorAllcome · 08/09/2019 16:56

@ItsGoingTibiaK
No, you cannot divine a day in 2001 of another person’s life from your keyboard. I think it’s a bit crazy that you think the sum of everyone’s existence is online. I did what I said I did and no amount of you fictionalising things can change that.

I’m only sorry, however, that you feel a need to harass me for some unknown reason. How would you feel if I harassed you about your trip to that wildlife park? You know, the one where you were driving with a baby on your lap? (A la Britney Spears?)

tequilasunrises · 08/09/2019 16:58

@DoctorAllcome

White people? Are you living in some kind of parallel universe where only white people ride horses? Horses and donkeys are working animals in PLENTY of African/Asian countries. That isn’t what this thread is about though.

DoctorAllcome · 08/09/2019 16:59

@LolaSmiles
? Elephants and horses have both been domesticated for thousands of years. And in significant numbers. Not sure why you think elephants were wild up until “today”.

DoctorAllcome · 08/09/2019 17:02

@tequilasunrises
Well DUH, today everyone rides horses. But evidently you don’t know your history. The horse was first domesticated on the Eurasian steppes by the ancestral tribes who were racially Caucasoid, aka white people.

FFSDH · 08/09/2019 17:10

doctorallcome you’re really making yourself look rather silly. We get it, you swam with dolphins at a place that isn’t ethical now but was for the day you went in 2001. You’re absolutely right and everyone else is wrong. Now off you trot on your domesticated horse.

tequilasunrises · 08/09/2019 17:11

@DoctorAllcome I’m not really sure what your point is. Did you read the link I posted above about how they ‘train’ elephants to be ridden by tourists? Why go out of your way to defend that?

PookieDo · 08/09/2019 17:15

It is very disputed whether Elephants can be domesticated at all. It is so very unlike dogs or horses they can’t be compared. It isn’t just their size. Domestication is very very difficult and extremely dangerous, you can raise a baby elephant but if they are male they become very volitile no matter what training they have had and if you breed the females they want to stay with their babies for many many years, much longer than even a wild dog would