When American hunter Samantha Strable shocked the world by snatching a screaming baby wombat from their frantic mother, PETA US stepped up, donating vital funds to Aussie wildlife charity WIRES to offset her selfishness. Then, as we all called for her deportation, it was also revealed that Strable once even (unsuccessfully) tried to infiltrate PETA US by applying for a job while concealing her passion for killing and eating wildlife!

While Strable wasn’t able to use PETA US to fund her bloodthirst and has now left Australia, the outrage she left in her wake makes now a wonderful time for each of us to ensure our own holiday habits don’t harm animals.

Here are six ways to avoid “pulling a Strable” on your travels!

Don’t Ride Elephants

Elephants are intelligent, social animals, but tourist traps that offer rides on their backs condemn them to lonely, dull lives. Elephants’ backs are weak, and to force them to carry humans, their spirit must be broken, which means confining them, often alone and almost always in horrific conditions. Captive elephants go through a stressful training process during which they’re restrained and have their sensitive underbellies and faces whacked with sharp bullhooks.

Handlers often steal baby elephants from their mothers, tying them down and beating them until they bleed and scream. Many elephants spend their entire lives on short chains and are abandoned in the forest without food or freedom when they become too old and sick to use. Real sanctuaries will never let you touch the animals.

Avoid Marine Parks and Aquariums

Imagine spending your entire life in your bathtub without your friends and family, forced to wither away in harsh chemicals and perform mind-numbing tricks. That’s the reality for orcas and other dolphins trapped in marine parks. Marine mammals enjoy big social groups and range long distances in their natural homes, but in places like SeaWorld, they spend their entire lives in concrete tanks, often giving birth to babies who will never know the sea.

Similarly, aquariums confine sea animals and fish to tanks to be gawped at by crowds or repeatedly squeezed in touch tanks— all while the café serves dead fish!

Walk Your Own Way

Animals aren’t taxis, but in high tourist areas like Greece and Egypt, they’re beaten and neglected and forced to take load after load of tourists sightseeing.

Several investigations have revealed animals covered in open wounds infested by flies, starving and thirsty in extreme heat and glaring sun. Camels, donkeys, and horses are whipped and kicked and forced to carry humans up mountains all day.

In Egypt, PETA Asia investigators even discovered a hidden “garbage pile” of dying and dead horses and camels who’d been dumped in the trash. Sightsee under your own steam and urge travel companies to stop selling tickets to tourist traps that hurt animals!

Don’t Drink Crap Coffee

Bali is a popular holiday destination for Aussies, but beware, some of their coffee is—literally—crap. Kopi Luwak is a coffee bean made from a berry that has been eaten, digested, and excreted (yep, pooped out) by civet cats (and on one farm investigated, red-listed binturongs).

The resulting brew is as expensive as it is disgusting, but worse is the suffering the animals face. Coffee farms lie to tourists about the animals “naturally eating” coffee cherries and excreting them for collection. However, civets are kept in tiny cages, malnourished and often suffering from parasitic infestations and painful, gaping wounds.

Leave Animals Out of Your Selfies

Animals are individuals with wants and needs, not photo props for us to scoop up and snap selfies with. Animals offered as props, like the tigers that grace so many cringey dating profiles, have often been taken from their mothers, drugged, and beaten. For the opportunists displaying them, they represent no more than a money-making opportunity. When they’re no longer “cute,” many are simply killed.

Instead of holding a terrified animal, use travel as a chance to perfect your photography skills— framing wild animals from a distance in their natural habitats is far more satisfying than making animal abusers like the notorious “Tiger King” richer!

Souvenir Shop Responsibly

Whether it’s a belt made from skinned snakes or a jumper made of sheep’s wool, some souvenirs are mementos of misery, not something to bring home. Every animal is someone, so consider who had to suffer for what you pay for before you buy.

Egregious acts like Samantha Strable’s kidnapping of a baby wombat are a wake-up for all of us to tread more lightly on the Earth and let animals live in peace. After all, every animal is someone!

To find out more ways you can help animals, download our FREE empathy kit here: