Chris Packham asks UK government to help stop animal cruelty abroad

Animal rights campaigner Chris Packham has joined forces with Animals Asia to call for Brits to report tourist attractions where animals are treated cruelly.

In September last year, a new UK law was passed to prevent travel companies from promoting and selling tickets in England and Northern Ireland to tourist attractions abroad where animals suffer and where welfare standards are considered unacceptable.

But the previous government did not define the standards of “unacceptable” after passing the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act, making it hard to enforce. This is why Animals Asia along with Chris Packham are asking British holidaymakers for help.

The charity is calling on British travellers to become “welfare whistleblowers” and report all instances of animal cruelty that they’ve encountered abroad since September 2023 when the law was passed.

This will help Animals Asia create a dossier of evidence to put pressure on the new government to implement the law and come up with a clearer definition of parameters.

So far 553 people have filled in their details online, reporting that they’d experienced animal cruelty since the law was passed.

Animals Asia would like to see the government’s list of banned activities at tourist attractions include: animals being made to perform, such as riding bicycles, jumping through hoops or unnatural tricks such as hand stands; animals confined in uncomfortable spaces that don’t allow them to act naturally or hurt them, such as small cages and pools or being chained to the ground under the sun to make money; tourists being allowed to feed wild animals or interact with them; elephant rides; and trophy hunting.

EasyJet holidays announced in March that it was stopping selling tickets to animal attractions off its own back due to company changes on animal welfare policy. TripAdvisor has held this stance since 2017.

Chris Packham is calling on British tourists to travel with kidness and boycott attractions that treat animals unfairly while we wait for the law to be fully implemented.

“British holidaymakers can still make a difference this summer with the power of the pound in their pockets,” he said. “Refusing to spend their money on tourist attractions where animals…