Is visiting the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage considered ethical?

Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is widely treated as unethical by modern wildlife conservation thinking because of chaining elephants, encouraging human interaction for tourist photos, and keeping animals bred in captivity with no real plan to let them back out into the wild.

It started in 1975 with genuine conservation ideas, but over time it has shifted into something more like a commercial zoo. The elephants are managed with bullhooks, and a lot of them stay chained to the riverbed by their ankles during bathing time so that visitors can get close-up pictures. If you want a more ethical choice, visitors can instead support the Elephant Transit Home (ETH) in Udawalawe, where the focus is on the rehabilitation of orphaned calves with the goal of eventual wild release.