Destination Rainbow's Animal Welfare Policy

We actively discourage our customers from participating in activities that exploit or harm animals, whether they are wild or domesticated animals.

These guidelines aim to provide guidance for responsible activities involving animals on our trips. These guidelines are used by Destination Rainbow staff to assist with:

• Designing trips and managing requests for experiences which involve wild or domesticated animals.
• Understanding the difference between wild and domesticated animals and why, as a result, the welfare of wild animals is always compromised when kept and used for tourist entertainment.
• The assessment of the health, safety and best management of wild and domestic animals during our trips

Animal welfare basics

Animal welfare concerns the health of the animal's body and mental state. The following Five Domains of animal welfare model, the universally known principles for defining basic welfare needs, have been considered in forming these guidelines:

• Nutrition - factors that involve the animal's access to sufficient, balanced, varied and clean food and water
• Environment - factors that enable comfort through temperature, substrate, space, air, odour, noise and predictability
• Health - factors that enable good health through absence of disease, injury, impairment and good fitness level
• Behaviour - factors that provide varied, novel and engaging environmental challenges through sensory inputs, exploration, foraging, bonding, playing, retreating and others
• Mental State - by presenting positive situations in the previous four functional domains, the mental state of the animal should benefit from predominantly positive states, such as pleasure, comfort or vitality, while reducing negative states such as fear, frustration, hunger, pain or boredom

Difference between wild and domestic animals

Destination Rainbow recognises that there is a difference between wild and domesticated animals. Domesticated animals are animals such as dogs or horses that have undergone selective breeding over many generations to be notably and genetically different to their wild ancestors. As a result, domesticated animals adapt more readily to captive conditions and are generally more easy to handle than their wild counterparts. This domestication process has not happened for wild animals such as elephants, tigers and monkeys, that nowadays are primarily kept for tourism and entertainment purposes and remain wild. Destination Rainbow accepts that the welfare of wild animals is compromised in captivity and captivity is only acceptable when it is in the animal's best interests and the highest possible standards of care are given (e.g. Sanctuaries for wildlife).

Riding & using animals for transport

Destination Rainbow believes domesticated working animals such as horses, donkeys / mules and camels which are used for transportation on our tours should have a decent life, where they are properly cared for and the positive aspects of their existence outweigh the negative. Some general guidelines for domesticated working animals:

• The animals should look well fed and be given adequate shelter and exercise.
• Their coats should be in good condition without sores (check near the mouth, shoulders, spine and belly, these areas are typically in constant contact with harnessing equipment). Wounds may also be hidden under a saddle or harness.
• Injuries and illness must be treated promptly. Sick and injured animals should not work at all.
• The animals must not be overloaded or overworked, meaning maximum one rider or 20% of the animal's weight. The weight or load an animal carries or pulls must be significantly reduced in relation to the more physically strenuous conditions faced (e.g. altitude, temperature, hours of work and age and condition of the animal).
• The animals should work for at most six hours a day and given one to two full days of rest from work each week. Mares should not be worked for three months both before and after foaling.
• The animal's eyes should be clear, bright and alert.
• Handlers should be trained and familiar with normal and abnormal behaviour and not use physical force (including hitting or beating with crops, sticks or hands) to control or manoeuvre the animal.
• 'Hobbling' (the practice of tying any part of the animal's limbs) should not be used as it can lead to lesions, infection and swelling.

Elephant rides are NOT part of our itineraries

We have used an extensive research project concerning the welfare of captive elephants, conducted by World Animal Protection, in order to inform our decisions around elephant rides. Because of the research findings, Destination Rainbow does not offer elephant rides as part of included or optional activities. Elephants are not, and never have been, domesticated. The methods involved in keeping elephants in captivity are very psychologically and physically harmful to the animals. These are the reasons we DO NOT offer elephant rides on our trips:

• To be trained, all elephants undergo a cruel, painful and intense process that forces them to accept human control.
• To be ridden, elephants often need to be restrained using bull hooks (by the handler) to maintain control of the elephant.
• These can cause serious injuries to the elephants, including sores and cuts that are likely to become infected.
• Elephants may display sudden outbursts of human targeted aggression, leading to injuries and fatalities.
• Captivity can cause significant health and behavioural problems.

While we no longer offer elephant rides, we do support elephants and other wildlife and conservation projects.

Viewing wildlife in the wild: land and marine environments

• Respect the animals' personal space. A visitor / vehicle must keep a safe and respectful distance and never chase animals. If the animal alters its behaviour, then the visitor has invaded its space and influenced its natural behaviour.
• When swimming, diving or snorkelling, ensure that you keep your distance from marine life and respect their space as wild animals.
• Observe nature as it occurs naturally and not as to how it responds to your presence there. Do not chase or lure animals with food or in any other way.
• Speak quietly - do not call out, whistle or in other ways try and attract the attention of animals. Avoid sudden movements.
• Remember that all wild animals can be unpredictable. If an animal charges you, it may be feeling threatened because it doesn't have enough space.
• Do not feed animals, neither those on land or marine life or birds. Feeding animals attracts them to humans and to human food, which upsets their natural diet, can shorten their life, and causes trouble for other people later by making the animals unnaturally aggressive.
• Do not touch wild animals, as you can unwittingly pass on diseases to wildlife, as well as placing yourself at risk. This includes marine/sea life.
• When in a safari environment, always stay in your vehicle as predators may be present.
• Night viewing: Minimise usage of a flashlight and never deliberately shine your light into an animal's eyes.

Sanctuaries for wildlife

Destination Rainbow itineraries should only include visits to facilities involving wild animals in captivity if the rationale for the sanctuary operation is in the best interests of the animals involved. Genuine sanctuaries:

• Do not buy/sell wild animals.
• Do not use the animals for interactions with customers or in performances/shows.
• Do not breed wild animals - unless they are part of an official recognised breeding program in which the animals involved are being responsibly released back in to the wild (and may otherwise be extinct or endangered).
• Allow for appropriate veterinary care according to their specific needs.
• Do not keep animals without a good reason (i.e. they must have a defined conservation benefit to keeping the animals).

Animal products

In most local markets, customers should avoid purchasing any wild animal products, especially anything from an endangered species, such as:

• Skins, including fur and reptile skins
• Horns, e.g. rhino
• Spiders and butterflies
• Turtle shell
• Seashells, coral, starfish
• Ivory
• Traditional medicines made from endangered animal parts and products

The wild animals used to produce these products often suffer significantly, and suffering is likely to occur regardless of if the animal has been bred in captivity or wild, or if the process is legal or illegal. We would advise against customers purchasing food products & 'medicinal' products that are made from wild animal derivatives which can also fuel wildlife farming and illegal wildlife trade.

Examples of such products include but are not limited to:

• Turtle soup
• Shark fin soup
• Snake whiskeys
• Bear bile
• Tiger or lion bone wine
• Civet coffee (Kopi Luwak)

Marine entertainment parks & aquariums

Dolphins and other marine mammals used for human entertainment purposes suffer physically and psychologically and are made to act unnaturally. Avoid marine parks or aquariums, especially those that keep large marine mammals, such as dolphins, captive as they are bred in captivity or captured from the wild and forced to live in unsuitable conditions that cannot adequately simulate the vast ocean or provide for their complex social, behavioural and intellectual needs.

Lion Walks

In southern Africa excursions are offered in which you can walk with lions. These animals have been taken from their mothers prematurely and in most cases have first been used for petting and as photographic props. Once these young animals have become too dangerous for direct handling by tourists they are used for lion walks. Many of the places that offer walking with wild cats claim that the once matured animals will be placed back into the wild. Fact is that these hand-reared animals can never effectively be released to the wild as their chances of survival cannot be guaranteed. It is also highly irresponsible to release a dangerous, large predator familiar with people into the wild where local people live. (Furthermore, predators are only tolerated in protected areas and these are limited. In these areas, predators are already living. It is not possible to put an endless stream of predators in one area. There is too little prey available.) When a lion has also become too dangerous for walking with tourists, they may be sent to canned hunting camps to be shot by trophy hunters in an enclosed environment. Cubs and adult lions may also be sold to zoos or wealthy collectors of exotic animals.

At Destination Rainbow we endeavour to use suppliers who support these views. If you have any questions about this, please do don't hesitate to reach out.