Avanti Destinations Bans Abusive Elephant Encounters After PETA Appeal
Portland Travel Agency Joins Dozens of Others in Prohibiting Cruel Attractions, Receives Elephant-Shaped Vegan Chocolates in Thanks
For Immediate Release:
September 7, 2016
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
After learning from PETA that elephants who are forced to give rides or perform tricks at tourist attractions are often forcibly separated from their mothers, immobilized with tightly bound ropes, and gouged with nails or other sharp objects, Portland-based travel agency Avanti Destinations made the compassionate and business-savvy decision to remove all elephant attractions from its tour itineraries.
“Avanti Destinations joins dozens of major travel companies in agreeing to reject tourist traps that imprison elephants, who are highly intelligent, social animals with complex needs and wants,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “PETA urges kind tourists to steer clear of all captive-elephant attractions and to use travel agencies such as Avanti Destinations that have pledged to do the same.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that elephants who survive training spend the rest of their lives in servitude, lugging tourists around or performing tricks under the threat of being beaten with bullhooks (weapons that resemble fireplace pokers with a metal hook on one end) or other sharp objects. Elephant attractions are also dangerous to humans. More than a dozen tourists have been killed in the past 15 years by elephants who have lashed out in Thailand, and tuberculosis—a deadly disease that is transmissible from animals to humans—has been documented in captive Asian and African elephants.
The travel agency will receive a box of delicious elephant-shaped vegan chocolates from PETA and joins Alexander+Roberts, Collette, Costco Travel, Friendly Planet Travel, Tauck, and others in agreeing not to promote exploitative captive-elephant businesses.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
