Animal Welfare Policy

Go See Travel LLC is committed to responsible tourism and protecting animals impacted by the travel industry. In creating this policy, we are pleased to have received guidance from World Animal Protection, a non-profit organization whose vision is a world where animals live free from cruelty and suffering.

Go See Travel LLC believes that all animals should be respected for their intrinsic value and that the best way to experience animals is by seeing them in the wild. When under human care Go See Travel LLC only works with suppliers if the animals are provided with the highest possible welfare by maximizing positive experiences and minimizing negative ones in line with the Five Domains principle of Animal Welfare:

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, odor, noise, and predictability.
Health – factors that enable good health through the absence of disease, injury, impairment, and good fitness level
Behavior – factors that provide varied, novel, and engaging environmental challenges through sensory inputs, exploration, foraging, bonding, playing, retreating, etc.
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.

Go See Travel LLC also believes that animals under human care must have “a good life” by enjoying good physical and mental health, and that they should be provided with an environment and conditions that not only prevent suffering but enable positive experiences and the ability to express a wide range of natural behaviors. At the same time, we recognize that the needs of wild animals, in particular, can never be fully met in captivity. Where wild animals are kept in captivity, the facility must not only provide them with the best possible welfare conditions; it must also contribute towards a shift away from exploitative practices and be supportive of phasing out keeping wild animals for commercial purposes.

Our Guidelines

At Go See Travel LLC, we do not knowingly sell or promote venues or activities that offer tourists any of the following experiences:

Close interaction with wild animals, such as touching or riding, including but not limited to elephant riding and bathing, swimming with dolphins, or walking with lions;

Watching wild animal performances, including but not limited to dolphin shows, circuses, and dancing bears;
Photo opportunities with captive wild animals, including, but not limited to big cats, sloths, or primates, tiger selfies, dolphin kissing, or selfies with orangutans;
Watching animals fight or race, or being used in other sport or cultural events that cause animals to suffer or die, including but not limited to bullfighting and running, crocodile wrestling, dogfighting, rodeo, elephant polo, orangutan boxing, and horse racing;
Visiting facilities where captive wild animals are bred and kept for commercial products, including but not limited to crocodile farms, civet coffee farms, bear bile farms, turtle farms;
Engaging in trophy hunting, canned hunting, or sport fishing.

When not in conflict with any of our other guidelines Go See Travel LLC does offer and promotes the following venues and activities were tourists can experience animals:

Genuine animal sanctuaries, rehabilitation facilities, and rescue centers that have the highest possible standards of animal care. Examples are sanctuaries certified by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) and elephant venues following World Animal Protection’s Elephant-Friendly venue guidelines. For further guidance on how to recognize a genuine wildlife sanctuary, see World Animal Protection’s checklist.
Responsible wildlife watching, where a visitor can observe animals in their natural environment from a suitable distance without interrupting their natural behaviors or disturbing their routines, such as whale watching experiences certified by the Whale Cetacean Alliance (WCA)
Zoos and aquariums accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).