Old news that goes viral again (and tells of an unsolved problem)
The news of the “ban” on overweight tourists from riding the donkeys of Santorini is circulating again on social media, but be careful: this is not something new for 2026, but rather a regulation from 2018. The fact that it resurfaces cyclically as if it were breaking news says a lot: the problem of exploited donkeys on the Greek island has never really been addressed. What was presented at the time as a turning point for animal protection turned out to be what it was: a patch on a wound that continues to bleed.
View this post on Instagram
The numbers that don’t save anyone
The rule establishes that donkeys can carry people weighing up to 100 kilograms or in any case no more than a fifth of their body weight. On paper it seems like a sensible compromise. In reality, it means that a donkey can still be forced to go up and down the 500 steps that connect the port of Fira to the historic center four or five times a day, under the Greek sun which exceeds 35 degrees in summer, with dozens of kilos on its back.
The fact that those kilos are 100 instead of 120 changes little for the animal’s spine, for the open sores that form under the harness, for the exhaustion from heat and dehydration. The weight limit did not eliminate exploitation: it simply regulated it.
The shocking video that (didn’t) change everything
In July 2018, a video made the rounds online showing obese British tourists astride donkeys who were visibly suffering, with visible spinal injuries and wounds on their backs. The outrage was global and immediate. Animal rights associations had been denouncing these conditions for some time, but it took that video to force the Greek government to intervene.
The answer was the new legislation, animal rights organisations, such as Peta UK, were clear right from the start: it is not enough. Mimi Bekhechi, director of Peta UK, summarized the problem clearly:
Donkeys can still be forced to carry a person weighing 100 kilograms up and down 500 steep steps as many as four or five times a day.
The weight limit doesn’t eliminate exploitation, it just makes it marginally less brutal.
The suffering industry disguised as tradition
Santorini’s donkeys have become a symbol of the island, part of the postcard imagery. What does not appear in the Instagram photos is the background: animals selected and bred specifically to be more “resistant” (translation: to better withstand years of exploitation), kept in precarious hygienic conditions, often without adequate access to water and shelter during long working days.
Locals have even started crossbreeding to obtain stronger animals capable of withstanding greater loads. It is not the preservation of a tradition: it is genetic engineering applied to animal exploitation. Mass tourism has transformed a historic practice into an unsustainable industry, where the demand for “authentic experiences” translates into daily suffering for dozens of donkeys.
Because the real ban should be total
The issue is not the burden of tourists but the very existence of this practice. There is no ethical way to have donkeys carry adult humans up and down hundreds of steps, regardless of the size of the passenger or the number of times per day, there are funiculars, but so do your own feet. There are alternatives that do not involve the systematic commodification of animals.
The point made by animal rights activists in 2018 remains very valid today: as long as there is a market for this type of “experience”, there will be exploited donkeys. The weight limit is a cosmetic measure that serves more to ease the conscience of tourists (“at least there is a rule”) than to truly protect the animals. It’s like saying that a worker can be exploited, but not too much.
Eight years later, nothing has really changed
That this news periodically resurfaces as if it were new is symptomatic. It means that the problem has not been solved, that Santorini’s donkeys continue to suffer, that Greek tourism continues to profit from this suffering passed off as local folklore.
The solution is not to weigh tourists before letting them on, but to stop considering acceptable the idea that an animal must work to exhaustion for our holiday enjoyment. Santorini will remain one of the most spectacular islands in the Mediterranean even without donkey taxis. Indeed, it will be more so when it stops being complicit in this cruelty disguised as tradition.
