Why we dont support Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage

Responsible Travel investigated Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka to find out if it really was an ethically run sanctuary for orphaned elephants, or whether its focus on tourism was at the expense of animal welfare. As a result of our findings, we removed all trips featuring Pinnawala from our site. Read about our reasons below.

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Why we do not support Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage

Responsible Travel does not market any holidays that include visits to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka. The reason is that, although Pinnawala is advertised as an 'orphanage' or 'sanctuary' which implies that the animals are rescued and well cared for, in reality the elephants are bred and displayed as a tourist attraction. While important conservation work is done at Pinnawala, prioritising tourism over animal welfare is problematic, which is why we recommend avoiding visits here.

We've put this page together to voice opinions on Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, explain how we've dealt with various concerned parties and to raise travellers' awareness of the animal welfare issues.

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The issues

Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is one of Sri Lanka's most popular animal attractions, yet while conditions here are generally better than at some other establishments in the region, the welfare of the animals is a cause for concern for many experts.

Responsible Travel started looking into Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage back in 2007 when a member of our team became aware that the animal welfare standards there may be questionable. We approached our holiday partners in Asia for their opinions and started a discussion inhouse as well as online.

Not long after this, Pinnawala was also the subject of a report by the animal welfare charity Born Free. The report is no longer online, but some of the key points included male elephants being chained during 'musth' (an aggressive period associated with reproductive hormones) causing wounds to the elephant's legs; the elephants being trained with the threat of pain from an 'ankus' (a shark hook with a spike, used as a traditional elephant training tool); and the elephants being used as photo props to bring in tourist revenues.

The report went on to explain that the terms 'orphanage' and 'sanctuary' should distinguish a captive animal facility from a zoo when the animals have been rescued from unacceptable captive conditions and are unable to be returned to the wild. The best interests of the animals should be a sanctuary's priority, not profit.

We sought the views of our tour operator partners and balanced these against Born Free's report. One made the following, perfectly valid, point:

"We take clients to the orphanage to encourage the orphanage not to deviate from their responsible policies. The more people (clients) we take to the orphanage, the more pressure and visibility on the orphanage on any shortcoming in their responsible policies. I think if tourists did not visit this place, the shortcomings would not have been revealed and the pressure wouldn't be there on the administration of the orphanage to get things right. As responsible individuals I think we must get together through our different roles to fix the problem rather than deserting the place and ignoring the short-comings by not visiting.”

Our decision

Although many of our partners believed that Pinnawala, while not an ideal environment for the elephants, provided a safe haven for the animals, for us at Responsible Travel, it looked more like a simple a tourist attraction. Worse than that however was evidence of captive breeding for tourism purposes.

Ultimately, we decided to remove all trips that included Pinnawala. We asked our partners in Asia to change their itineraries and also to consider encouraging their travellers to avoid Pinnawala.

The decision to exclude Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage from our site was not an easy one. Whilst we were certain that the animal welfare standards at the orphanage were not acceptable, the question of whether we were imposing our own, Western values overseas remained an issue. However our decision was made based on the Born Free report. We firmly believe that tourism must come second to animal welfare.

"We recognise the report from Born Free and although the short term alternatives to Pinnawala are far from ideal, our belief is that this does not make it acceptable to visit and therefore condone their current practices." – Justin Francis, Executive Chair and Co-founder of Responsible Travel

Further reading

Whilst the issues around elephants are complicated, we can only deal with one issue at a time and address each one on a case by case basis. We are aware that there are many other elephant sanctuaries in Asia with poor animal welfare standards and there are ethical questions relating to the 'breaking' of elephants used for elephant back rides and safaris. We are continuously working on our animal welfare and wildlife policies – for instance, when we decided to stop marketing any holidays that feature elephant bathing.

We believe it is important to keep our travellers informed regarding responsible tourism issues. For more information about Elephants in Tourism, see our advice to travellers about animals in tourism.

To read more about our views on animals in tourism, please see our stance on wildlife and our stance on captive animals.