Hello all 75,937 of you! Today I received the following response from Thomas Cook: Dear Ms Bashford, I’ve been asked by Peter Fankhauser to get in touch regarding the petition you launched on change.org ‘Stop Promoting Trips to Swim with Captive Dolphins’. We are taking very seriously the concerns expressed by those who have offered their support to this petition. As a business, Thomas Cook has a proven track record of working with animal welfare organisations to improve the conditions of the animals featured in the excursions we sell. However, we have also recognised that we must continue to review our programme in this area, and to this end, we took the decision earlier this year to commission animal welfare experts Global Spirit to conduct an independent audit of the animal attractions we offer, assessing the attractions against the standards set out in the ABTA Global Welfare Guidance for Animals in Tourism. There is more information on this guidance, if of interest, on the ABTA website. The audit included a number of dolphin and whale attractions, and we are currently reviewing the findings. While we do not wish to pre-empt the outcome, Thomas Cook is committed to working responsibly and ethically in all areas of our business, and we expect the same from our suppliers. I hope this information is helpful. Yours sincerely, Stephen I believe this response is inconclusive, and that the ABTA guidelines are vague and inadequately open to interpretation. The fact remains, no tank will ever be the same as the open ocean, regardless of whether the living conditions are deemed sufficient. Whilst Thomas Cook review the findings of their audit, we need to make our message clear: keeping these highly intelligent, sentient beings in captivity purely for human entertainment is exploitation and is not okay. Ever. Please continue to talk about and share this petition. I’d love to hear your opinions on Thomas Cook’s response and now we’ve got Thomas Cook’s attention, it’s likely they’ll be taking note of your comments too. Let’s tell them, enough is enough. Once again, thank you. Katie