When we travel, many of us are drawn to animals, whether it’s elephants in Thailand, dolphins offshore or a sanctuary we’ve spotted online. Most people want to do the right thing. But when animals are part of tourism, what looks ethical and what is ethical can be two very different things.
Ethical animal tourism means choosing animal experiences where the animal’s welfare comes first: its health, its state of mind and its freedom to behave naturally, not just our enjoyment of the moment. The question we come back to every time is simple. Does this animal have a life worth living?
I spent almost a decade on the board of an animal welfare organisation. Making things better for animals in Australian tourism was one part of that work, and it opened my eyes to animal tourism around the world. Here’s what ethical animal tourism actually means, the animal welfare science behind it, and the test we use before any wildlife experience.
In this guide
What ethical animal tourism actually means
The word ethical gets used a lot in travel marketing, often without a clear definition. The Cambridge Dictionary defines ethical as “relating to beliefs about what is morally right and wrong”. That sounds simple enough, but in practice our sense of right and wrong is shaped by many things: our upbringing, culture, religious beliefs and personal values.
What one person sees as a heartwarming animal experience, another sees as exploitation. That’s why gut feeling or cultural norms aren’t enough when it comes to animal welfare. We need something more consistent, and that comes from animal welfare science.
Whether you call it ethical animal tourism, ethical wildlife tourism or responsible wildlife tourism, it asks the same questions of any experience:
- Is this encounter respectful to the animal?
- Does it meet the animal’s needs, not just our expectations?
- Is it part of a bigger picture of care and conservation?
It’s about recognising that we’re part of the story. Our bookings decide which experiences keep operating, so our choices can either support or undermine animal welfare in tourism.
Why it’s harder to judge than it looks
On the surface, animal tourism can look harmless or even positive. A tourist riding an elephant, a group feeding baby tigers, a café full of cats lounging in the sun. But just because something looks cute or calm doesn’t mean it’s ethical.
Animals are used in tourism all over the world, and not always in the ways we expect:
- Elephants used for rides or painting
- Monkeys dressed in clothes and made to perform
- Dolphins doing tricks in marine parks
- Big cats in small enclosures offered up for selfies
- Cobras used by snake charmers for street photos
- Wild animals kept in cafés or “rescue” centres with little regulation
Some of these are marketed as conservation or education. Words like sanctuary and rescue are easy to put on a sign and much harder to live up to. And many of these experiences don’t look cruel. There’s no visible abuse, but the animals are restrained, overworked, deprived of natural behaviours or kept in conditions we’d never accept for our own pets.
We’ve got this wrong ourselves. Years ago, before my time on the welfare board, we visited a zoo in Cairo. A lioness that looked drugged was dragged out of a pen so tourists could pose with her. We were younger and didn’t really understand what we were seeing, but it was horrible, and I wish we’d never gone.
In Thailand, we came across plenty of elephant shows put on purely for tourists. We refused to go to any of them.
Spotting the problems takes a little more than a gut check, and that’s where two animal welfare frameworks help.
The Five Freedoms: where animal welfare standards began
The Five Freedoms came out of the UK and were originally about livestock. In 1965, a British government inquiry into intensively farmed animals, known as the Brambell Report, said animals should at least be able to stand up, lie down, turn around, stretch their limbs and groom themselves.
In 1979, prompted by Professor John Webster, the UK’s Farm Animal Welfare Council extended that idea to cover animals’ mental needs as well as their physical ones, and the Five Freedoms were born. RSPCA Australia adopted them as policy in 1993, and they’re now used well beyond the farm, including for animals in tourism.
So what are the five freedoms of animal welfare?
- Freedom from hunger and thirst: ready access to fresh water and the right diet for the species, not just enough food.
- Freedom from discomfort: shelter, a comfortable place to rest and an environment that suits the animal.
- Freedom from pain, injury or disease: prevention, plus fast diagnosis and treatment, including access to a vet.
- Freedom to express normal behaviour: enough space, proper facilities and the company of the animal’s own kind.
- Freedom from fear and distress: conditions and treatment that avoid mental suffering. Like us, an animal’s mental health matters as much as its physical health, and distress can quickly become physical illness.
The Five Freedoms are an essential foundation, but they’re mostly about preventing harm. That’s only half the picture. An animal can be fed, sheltered and free of injury and still have a pretty miserable life.
The Five Domains: from avoiding harm to a good life
In 1994, Professor David Mellor and Dr Cam Reid proposed the Five Domains model to look at an animal’s overall quality of life, including how it feels. Four domains cover the animal’s physical and functional state: nutrition, physical environment, health and behaviour. Together they shape the fifth, its mental state, which is ultimately what welfare is about.
The model was updated in 2020 to take in the animal’s interactions with its environment, other animals and people. For animal tourism, that matters, because we are the people. Every ride, feed, photo and close encounter is a human interaction the animal has to live with.
Here’s how the two frameworks line up, and what each one looks like on a trip:
| Five Freedoms | Five Domains | Ask on your trip |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom from hunger and thirst | Nutrition | Is it fed the right food for its species, or fed by tourists for photos? |
| Freedom from discomfort | Physical environment | Can it get shade, shelter, space and a quiet place to rest? |
| Freedom from pain, injury or disease | Health | Is there proper veterinary care, and any sign of pain, such as limping, wounds or reluctance to move? An animal can look healthy and still be in pain. |
| Freedom to express normal behaviour | Behavioural interactions | Can it behave naturally, be with its own kind and choose how it interacts with people? |
| Freedom from fear and distress | Mental state | Does it seem calm and engaged, or stressed, bored or shut down? |
What makes the Five Domains so useful is the shift from removing the bad to adding the good. Animals need the chance to feel pleasure, curiosity and calm, not just the absence of pain or fear.
Our test: does this animal have a life worth living?
The idea of a life worth living comes from animal welfare science. In 2009, the UK’s Farm Animal Welfare Council said every animal in our care should have a life worth living from its own point of view, and that more and more should have a good life. The Five Domains model was later built around the same goal.
RSPCA Australia puts it this way:
“To help ensure animals have … ‘a good life’ they must have the opportunity to have positive experiences, such as anticipation, meaningful social connection, satisfaction, and satiation. To enable this, those responsible for the care of animals need to provide them with opportunities for interactions (with their environment, people, and other animals) that not only allow but encourage animals to make choices and express behaviours that are rewarding to them.”
Based on my own experience, the question I take from that is simple: does this animal have a life worth living? It’s stayed with me since I first came across the Five Domains, and it’s the test we use for every animal experience, at home and overseas.
The life worth living test
- Can the animal make choices: move away, rest or hide when it wants to?
- Does it live with others of its kind, or is it on its own for display?
- Is it being made to perform, pose or be handled for visitors?
- Is it healthy and free from pain, not just healthy-looking, in surroundings that suit its species?
- What happens to it behind the scenes, and when it can no longer work?
If the honest answer to any of these is no, or you simply can’t find out, keep asking questions before you book. For the practical side of checking an operator, our guide to how to tell if an animal encounter is ethical breaks it down into 14 tips.
What a life worth living looks like in practice
Some of our favourite wildlife experiences have passed the test easily, because the animals were simply living their lives and we were lucky enough to watch.
Sri Lanka: reading the signs
Sri Lanka’s national parks are a good example, and our safari in Yala National Park with Kulu Safaris showed us the difference a good guide makes. In Yala, when word gets around that a leopard is nearby, guides and drivers often rush in so their guests can see it. You end up with a line of four-wheel drives racing to the same spot, and the leopard moves off.
Our guide and driver took their time instead. They read the signs, listening to the monkeys’ and birds’ alarm calls to work out where the leopard was. Because of that, we had a leopard lying down on the track entirely to ourselves, with no other vehicles around.
Lisa’s Tip
Pick a reputable guide, like the one we had from Kulu Safaris. You won’t really know how a guide works with wildlife until you’re out on safari with them, so the operator’s reputation is what you have to go on.
Yala also showed us what fails the test. A main road runs through the park, and wild elephants sometimes come out onto it. People in cars, in tuk-tuks and on motorbikes throw food out to them, so the elephants move towards the food and the drivers feel safer getting past. It teaches the elephants that the road means food, which draws them back to it again and again. Our Kulu guide and driver were clearly angry about it, and told us how harmful it is.
Good to Know
Never feed wild animals, however tempting it is. In Sri Lanka, the wildlife authorities have said people who feed wild elephants can be arrested.
Thailand: watching, not touching
In Thailand, we chose Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, where you don’t bathe with or ride the elephants. You simply watch them and how they live. The sanctuary takes elephants that have spent their lives working in logging or tourism and gives them a retirement where they no longer have to work or perform.
Closer to home
Queensland is where we live, and in whale season we can stand on the beach and watch whales breaching without even getting on a boat. In Tasmania, we’ve watched wombats wandering freely at Cradle Mountain and on Maria Island, and we left them to it. In Komodo National Park in Indonesia, the Komodo dragons live as they always have, in their own habitat.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if a specific animal experience is ethical?
Run it through the life worth living test above. If the animal can’t make choices, live with its own kind or behave naturally, or it’s being made to perform or pose, that’s your answer. If it passes, check the operator next. Our 14 practical tips show you what to look for.
Are all animal sanctuaries ethical?
Sadly, no. Sanctuary is a marketing word as much as anything. Look for transparency: where the animals came from, how they’re cared for, what their long-term future is, and whether visitors watch rather than ride, bathe or handle them.
Can zoos be ethical?
Some accredited zoos do important conservation, education and rehabilitation work. Others fall well short. Look at enclosure size, enrichment, social groups and whether the zoo is part of genuine breeding or rewilding programs. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
Is a selfie with an animal ever OK?
Not if the animal is restrained, drugged, forced to pose or kept from resting so tourists can take photos. Ethical encounters respect the animal’s boundaries, and the best wildlife photos are usually taken from a distance anyway.
I’ve visited places I now realise weren’t ethical. What should I do?
Don’t beat yourself up. We have too. What matters is learning from it, choosing differently next time and sharing what you’ve learnt with others.
Choosing with your eyes open
Ethical animal tourism isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being informed, and curious enough to ask better questions before you book. Every choice we make as travellers helps shape what animal tourism looks like in the future.
It goes beyond encounters, too. We don’t eat at restaurants that serve endangered species. In Reykjavik, that meant skipping any restaurant with whale meat on the menu.
So keep seeking out wildlife on your travels. Just ask yourself, every time, whether the animal in front of you has a life worth living.
Last updated: October 2026. Animal welfare sources, the RSPCA Australia wording and operator details checked.
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