Every summer thousand of holiday makers choose a ride on a camel or a donkey over the option of walking, especially in the south of Europe like Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, the Canaries Islands and so on.

In most countries the owners and the law respect and enforce the good health and lifestyle of these lovely animals, others  really don’t care if the donkey  you are sitting on with your children, is overloaded and has back pain from transporting you for own fun over miles and miles without a break under the full heat of the day.

The sadness is that when you choose to have fun using this means of transportation, you don’t realise, or you choose to ignore, the suffering and bad treatment of these animals, you never know, you maybethe last friendly tourist he is transporting because when this animal can’t do it anymore, he is going for one single trip to the butcher for your own enjoyment and stomach, a sausage in your plate for your at breakfast!

Every tourist has the power to reduce the poor animal affliction by flagging concerns to local authorities and tour operators; this will encourage a needed change in poor animal welfare practises!

The Brits and the American the tourists who seem to use this kind of fun most often, why? Ignorance? Just for a change...  after all we do go to exotic places to see and try new things.

My advice is to double check the health of animals and the conditions they are kept in, and if they are happy then it is a good sign that they will be well cared for. It is so easy to see this feeling in their eyes and behaviour, if they are beaten frequently while walking by the keepers, this is a sign the poor donkey is exhausted and fed up to transport you on his back.

Well cared for animals will be used to tourists, and will happily approach or interact with you (or at least not shy away), their coat and eyes will be in good condition, and there will be plenty of food and clean water available to them

Bad signs are if the animals are still or tired looking.  If the coat is not smooth and even, they have parasites or the signs of them on the body or if there are any injuries.  Most animals that are ridden will have some form of saddle – this should fit snugly onto the back of the animal, and if you look around the edges of it there should be no signs of injury – or coat damage.  If the coat is rubbed for long periods, much like a human foot with poor shoes, the skin will rub into dry patches, blisters or other injuries.

Personally, I boycott this kind of fun, I love animals to much to use them this way preferring to walk where possible but if you still think, when you arrive in Turkey, you are going to book straight away a ride on a donkey or camel, my advice the best holiday for people like you is to go to Disneyland, a real paradise, with high animal welfare standards, I am sure though it is also where you will never meet me!

Erick Munnings