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Stop Allowing Tourists To Handle Wild Animals
Final signature count: 8,732
8,732 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: The Rainforest Site
Animals are being mortally harmed and ripped from their homes because of tourists
Tell Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Tourism, and the President of Brazil to work together to ban the captivity and handling of wild animals for sake of tourism!
Animals in the Brazilian rainforest are being ripped away from their homes and families at an increasing rate because of the tourism industry. Unless these tourist traps are stopped, animals will continue being abused and mortally harmed. Tourists should never be able to handle wild animals!
People all over the world are traveling to Brazil just to get a glimpse at some of South America’s most amazing animals. The problem is that locals are capturing these animals by any means necessary to help make them more money by allowing tourists to handle and take pictures with said animals.
Sloths are being taken from the wild and tied to trees with rope, caimans are being restrained with rubber bands around their jaws, and manatees are being kept in tanks barely big enough to hold them [1].
Wildlife tourism accounts for around 20-40 percent of the entire world’s tourism industry, and in Brazil, the industry is growing quickly. [2]
Even in a town like Puerto Algeria with only 600 families, hundreds of tourists come every single day to see and take pictures with captured wild animals. [2]
Rare and free-ranging pink river dolphins are being conditioned to interact with humans by being baited with food so that tourists can touch and take pictures with the wild animals. And this is just the tip of the iceberg for the issue.[3]
“The growing demand for harmful wildlife selfies is not only a serious animal welfare concern but also a conservation concern,” said Dr. Neil D’Cruze of World Animal Protection. “Our online review of this kind of practice in Latin America found that more than 20% of the species involved are threatened by extinction and more than 60% are protected by international law.” [1]
Currently, it is already illegal in Brazil to remove an animal from the wild and keep it captive without a license, but it isn’t being even remotely enforced. [4]
Unless these already existing laws become applied, wild animals will continue to suffer under the hands of their captors and tourists alike.
