Bali and Lombok wildlife parks found to have animals living in inhumane conditions in Indonesia

For many Bali is a dream holiday destination, drawing in millions of tourists each year for a tropical getaway.

But what many visitors don’t know is the popular island has a dark side where animals are being horrifically treated all in the name of entertainment.

Wildlife entertainment parks featuring elephants, tigers, monkeys and dolphins are profiting off unknowing tourists who think they’re going to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience with a wild animal.

But the truth behind a selfie with an orangutan or an elephant ride is highly disturbing.

An investigation by World Animal Protection found that out of 34 wildlife venues around Bali and nearby Lombok, not one met the needs of their animals.

Elephants were filmed chained up outside in the sun, orangutans were isolated in inhumane conditions, dolphins were forced to do tricks in tiny swimming pools and endangered turtles were kept in small cages.

Elephants are seen chained up on concrete ‘resting pads’ at one Bali wildlife park

Primates have also been severely mistreated and live in concrete enclosures (pictured at Bakas Elephant Park)

Suzanne Milthorpe, Head of Campaigns at World Animal Protection, saw some of the horrors first hand during the investigation this year.

‘What we found was no wildlife entertainment venue in Bali met good welfare standards for animals in captivity and most didn’t even meet the basic needs,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.

WAP has released a report into its findings titled Holidays that Harm, where the treatment of more than 1,300 animals was looked at.

The report came after a similar investigation in 2017, with only some minor improvements made at the wildlife venues in the years since.

Ms Milthorpe said there was no responsible way to see animals like elephants and monkeys in Bali, and suggested if tourists were hoping to do so, they should travel elsewhere.

‘One venue had elephant shows where elephants were performing unnatural acts and were being prodded with bull hooks to keep them performing,’ she said.

‘They’ve never evolved to be comfortable around humans.’

Shocking footage from inside the venues shows just a glimmer of the harrowing torment these animals have been subjected to.

One worker is seen armed with a bullhook that is repeatedly used on elephants to get them to perform shows

Pictured is a severely neglected Orangutan at the Lombok Wildlife Park

Johnny the macaque is seen in 2017 (on left) and again living in a cage subjected to cruel treatment in 2023 (on right)

The elephant handlers are armed with bullhooks which they use to prod the animals to get them to perform tricks.

At most venues the elephants are used for rides, forced to perform shows, take selfies with guests and even paint.

When they aren’t doing this, they’re chained up and isolated from fellow elephants.

‘In order to make them ‘tame’ enough to perform these activities, elephants are separated from their mothers and made to endure inhumane training processes such as ‘the crush’ at an early age which often involves cruel punishments such as chaining, hitting, isolation and starvation,’ the report found.

‘While the severity of this process varies, it always causes intense suffering to elephants as it is based on establishing dominance.’

For dolphins, who are highly intelligent and usually swim several kilometres a day, their life has been confined to a small chlorinated pool.

They’re also forced to endure rigorous show schedules.

Even more troubling is the conditions in which monkeys and apes, particularly orangutans, gibbons and macaques, are kept in.

When WAP investigators visited wildlife venues in Bali back in 2017, they noted two macaques Johnny and Jenny who were kept in a cage and each chained by the neck at a venue called Turtle Island.

When they returned this year, Jenny was gone but Johnny was still living in the same shocking conditions on his own. Staff claimed Jenny had been ‘released into the forest’, but this has not been verified.

‘They’re really sociable creatures, and Johnny was kept on his own,’ Ms Milthorpe said.

‘He was running back and forth biting his hands.’

An orangutan, also named Jenny, was seen suffering immensely at one venue.

Ms Milthorpe said owners had struggled financially during Covid and weren’t always able to feed the animals.

‘Jenny was just by herself in this big concrete enclosure. She begged for food and cried out, she was clearly under a lot of stress,’ she said.

‘Physically being there, seeing and smelling the animals’ filthy cages, it was shattering.’

The treatment of tigers and turtles at these wildlife parks was also looked at. 

Dolphins roam freely at Lovina Beach but due to big tourist numbers, their welfare is impacted with hundreds of boats trying to chase them down 

An elephant rider is seen armed with a bullhook at the Mason Elephant Lodge

These highly social and intelligent animals are forced to have up close and personal interactions with humans

Tigers, similarly to elephants, are forced to perform unnatural acts in shows, often with blaring loudspeakers and music playing in the background.

‘In addition to this, they are severely restrained and controlled for close encounters with tourists, with indications that some tigers are drugged,’ the report found. 

Indonesia is home to six of the world’s seven sea turtle species.

At many of the venues in Bali and Lombok turtles are able to be handled which is extremely stressful for the animals.

They’re also crowded into small pens with little water depth and no environmental enrichment.

‘We visited one venue that was masquerading as a turtle rescue centre even though there was no evidence it was, and the staff member just picked up a critically endangered turtle and put it in my hand,’ Ms Milthorpe said.

Ms Milthorpe said while other countries in Asia do offer legitimate elephant sanctuaries and rehabilitation facilities, no such thing existed in Bali or Lombok.

A monkey is seen lying on the floor of its concrete enclosure at the Bali Safari Park

The enclosures for elephants were found to be inadequate at the Bali Safari Marine Park

Pictured are tourists on an elephant ride at Bali Zoo

Other animals were also discovered to be exploited and mistreated at Bali Zoo

She said it was incredibly difficult for tourists to know which venues are legit as they make all kinds of claims on their own websites.

Ms Milthorpe said a good rule of thumb was if visitors are physically able to interact with the animals – taking selfies, getting up close and personal, going on rides – there was most likely some form of cruel training going on behind the scenes.

‘A lot of venues make claims about being sanctuaries or rescue centres and it’s hard to tell which is which and that’s why we call on tourist companies to stop promoting them,’ she said.

Following the 2017 report, major travel companies like Helloworld and Flight Centre stopped promoting the venues in question.

This year’s report found Qantas, Expedia and Tripadvisor had all been selling tickets for accommodation at Mason Elephant Lodge which was found to have ‘severely inadequate conditions’ for animals.

After concerns were raised with Qantas by WPA, the airline confirmed any content associated with Mason Elephant Lodge had been removed from their website immediately.

The airline continues to work with the animal protection organisation. 

A person is seen poking an orangutan in the eyes at Bali Zoo

TripAdvisor meanwhile sells accommodation and experience packages to the elephant lodge as well as Lombok Wildlife Park and Bali Reptile Park, and promotes a list of other troubled wildlife venues.

A TripAdvisor spokesperson said they have an ‘industry-leading animal welfare policy that every bookable experience sold on our platform must comply with’.

‘We take any allegations of abuse very seriously and are committed to investigating reports of policy violations. Along with the ongoing work of our dedicated Trust and Safety team, we also rely on our community of travellers, businesses and animal rights groups to alert us to potential violations on the more than 11 million businesses listed on Tripadvisor.

‘It is important to note just because an attraction is listed on Tripadvisor, it does not represent our endorsement of its animal welfare practices. 

‘We list attractions so that travellers can share their genuine, first-hand experience there – both positive and negative. It is our firm belief that our community of millions of reviewers can serve as a check-and-balance on matters of quality, customer service, and social issues, including how animals are treated. For these reasons, we prefer not to remove business listings from the platform.

‘In cases like these where an experience is directly bookable on Tripadvisor, we review any evidence of policy violations and where necessary, take appropriate action, including removing the ability book through our platform. 

‘We are grateful to World Animal Protection for alerting us to these potential breaches, which have been passed to our investigations team for immediate review.’

An Expedia spokesperson said the Bali Zoo and Bali Reptile Park had been removed from their website prior to WAP’s report, however they still sell to the Mason Elephant Lodge.

‘Regarding Mason Elephant Lodge, we made the decision to continue offering their accommodations. We work with several accrediting bodies across the animal welfare space and rely on their expertise and certification processes to inform our policies,’ they said. 

‘We are committed to playing an essential role in educating travellers about wildlife tourism, so they’re able to make better decisions on how they travel and interact with animals.’

While there has been some progress made since the 2017 report, the majority of animals living in inhumane conditions are still suffering.

One elephant camp and three dolphin facilities were closed, however the ‘rescued’ elephants were only transferred to another wildlife entertainment venue rather than a sanctuary.

Orangutans pictured at the Bakas Elephant Park

More caged animals are seen at the Bakas Elephant Park

Out of the dolphins who were at the facilities now closed, some were taken to a rescue centre while four were released into the wild. Five were transferred to the Bali Exotic Marine Park which still offers up close and personal experiences for visitors with dolphins.

The troubled Tasta Zoo opened in 2021 and houses some of the elephants from the closed camp. 

Some elephant parks removed rides and shows since 2017 but were still found to not be providing decent care for their animals.

‘Overall, there was no meaningful or significant improvement in the recorded and observed welfare conditions for wildlife in entertainment in Bali and Lombok in just over five years since the last report,’ the report found.

‘Our investigation showed that wild animals are still predominantly suffering from inadequate conditions.’

All venues were rated as having inadequate conditions for animals, with only five having an on-site vet. 

The Bakas Elephant Park had ‘visibly deteriorated’ during the Covid pandemic and reported struggling to get the funds to feed the animals.

There are six venues holding a combined 92 elephants in Bali, with five of the six offering rides.

‘All venues are actively pursuing captive breeding of their elephants with no prospect of them living in the wild,’ the report said.

Thirty per cent of elephants observed by WAP had no contact with other elephants, despite the species being incredibly social.

Ten tigers were observed as part of the investigation, with eight living in overcrowded enclosures and the other two on their own.

‘As in 2017, there was minimal enrichment seen in the enclosures – just static structures, typically with one platform that also poses as a shelter under which the tigers could lie,’ the report found.

‘Two tigers were seen pacing back and forth around the cage, which can be a stress-related stereotypic behaviour, and one was very overweight.’

Civets, small nocturnal mammals, have been cruelly poached from the wild and forced to live in cages at coffee venues across Bali.

They ingest coffee cherries to produce a feaces that contains partially digested, fermented coffee beans.

Sixteen civet coffee venues were visited but in some good news the number of animals from 2017 dropped from 80 to 45. 

Even places where visitors are seeing animals in their natural habitats out in the wild, overtourism has played a significant role.

Tourists can embark on dolphin-watching tours at Lovina Beach, where dolphins are free to roam and are not kept captive.

But because there are so many boats and tourists groups trying to track down these animals at a time, the dolphins’ welfare is significantly impacted.

‘There were 100 boats out one day chasing down the dolphins and one juvenile was struck,’ Ms Milthorpe said. 

The Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud also puts the wild monkeys under stress as there are hundreds of tourists trying to take a selfie with them. 

Another major problem is animals that are bred in captivity often struggle to adjust to life if they’re released into the wild.

An inadequate animal enclosure is seen at the Bakas Elephant Park

Many suffer a lot of significant psychological scars and don’t know how to find their own food.

‘If we keep bringing these animals in from the wild there’s a big problem down the line as people move away from captive tourism,’ Ms Milthorpe said.

‘It means there’s a number of animals not able to be released into the wild and the venues are going to have to do something and our fear is they might be euthanized.’ 

WAP has worked with various wildlife venues around the world to help transition animals out of the entertainment industry into legitimate sanctuaries.

But in the case of wildlife entertainment parks in Bali and Lombok, it’s up to the venues themselves to make a change.

Ms Milthorpe also stressed travel companies played a major role in stopping the promotion of such venues.

‘Everyone really has a responsibility and us as tourists have a lot of power to say we’re not going to support this,’ she said. 

Elephants are seen chained up at the Mason Elephant Lodge