An animal welfare syllabus for wildlife tourism

Abstract

An important sector of animal-based tourism is wildlife tourism, which includes a diverse base of attractions in captive, semi-captive and wild settings. We argue that actors (tourists, tourism operators, and academics) must have the prerequisite knowledge of animal welfare to assess animals’ conditions in tourism settings. To this end, this paper has two aims. The first is to develop an animal welfare syllabus that should be used to teach students in higher learning institutions (who may ultimately work at animal attractions upon their graduation) as well as operators. The second aim is to mesh the papers in this special edition as case studies within the syllabus in making a case for an enhanced animal welfare educational tool for wildlife tourism. While the animal welfare syllabus is constructed for all animals used in tourism, we apply it specifically to the wildlife tourism sector.

Keywords:

• animal-based tourism
• animal welfare
• syllabus
• curriculum

Disclosure statement

The authors have no known conflict of interest to disclose..