A UK Animal Welfare Law Stuck in Limbo

In 2023, the UK passed a law designed to tackle one of the biggest drivers of animal exploitation abroad: the advertising and sale of tickets to wildlife attractions involving low standards of animal welfare.

The Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act was intended to prevent UK businesses from promoting and selling tickets to animal attractions abroad that would not meet UK animal welfare standards.

Tourists from the UK make up a significant share of visitors to Loro Parque in Tenerife, Spain, where orcas and bottlenose dolphins perform in front of audiences. Although dolphin shows no longer exist in the UK due to animal welfare concerns, UK holidaymakers continue to support similar performances overseas, helping sustain the captivity industry abroad. Credit: Helene O’Barry

On paper, it was a significant step forward for animal protection. But there is one problem.

Almost three years after it was approved by Parliament, the UK government still has not completed the final steps needed to make the law operational. The secondary legislation defining which species and experiences are covered is still not in place. As a result, travel companies across the UK can continue to advertise and sell tickets to venues that exploit animals for entertainment and keep them in poor conditions. This urgent issue has been the focus of advocacy by several UK-based organizations, including Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Marine Connection.

For facilities such as Loro Parque in Tenerife, where orcas and bottlenose dolphins are used in shows, the Act’s implementation could affect their promotion in the UK. British tourists make up a large share of visitors, and travel companies such as TUI continue to play an important role in selling tickets.

During the 1960s and 1970s, there were more than 30 dolphinariums in the UK. Over time, increasingly strict welfare requirements for keeping dolphins in captivity led to the closure of these facilities. The last dolphinarium in the UK closed in 1993, with none remaining today.

That makes the current situation particularly stark: while dolphin shows no longer exist in the UK, British tourists still purchase tickets to similar attractions abroad. In many cases, those tickets are promoted and sold by UK travel companies.

These dolphins continue to perform while the UK government has yet to complete the secondary legislation needed to bring its 2023 law on low-welfare wildlife attractions abroad into force. Credit: Helene O’Barry

If an activity would no longer be acceptable at home, should it still be marketed and sold to holiday makers overseas?

Dolphin Project is encouraging the UK government to move forward with the secondary legislation required to bring the Act into force. It was intended to help prevent the advertisement and sale of low-welfare animal attractions abroad, but without the necessary secondary legislation, it leaves the exploitation of wildlife unchanged.

Behind this delay are real animals. Every day the Act remains ineffective, dolphins and other cetaceans continue to be bred, confined, and used for entertainment in facilities that many people would never accept in their own countries. These animals spend their entire lives in barren tanks, performing for paying audiences, deprived of the freedom, space, and social lives they would have in the wild. This is the reality the UK government continues to permit through inaction.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

If you live in the UK, please contact your local MP and ask them to urge the government to implement the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act without further delay. It only takes a few minutes and can help keep pressure on the government to bring this important law into force. As long as the Act remains unenforced, animals continue to be exploited in tourist attractions that would not meet UK animal welfare standards.

You can find your local MP here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com

If you live outside the UK, please share this article to help raise awareness and encourage your friends, family, or colleagues in the UK to contact their MP.

Featured image: Captive dolphins perform at Oltremare Theme Park in Italy. Credit and license: Roberto Ferrari, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license