Zoos are a great way to explore some of the rarest and most
fascinating creatures known to mankind. Unfortunately, for animal lovers it’s
also one of the worst things to experience – after all, nobody likes to imagine
a wild animal trapped in a cage with millions of curious faces to see each day
instead of being allowed to roam around freely in the wild.
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| Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo |
The Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo located in Chongqing city, China, takes a slightly different approach when it comes to how things work – by letting the animals roam free and keeping the visitors locked up in cages. This allows for visitors to get closer to the animals than they ever would with a more conventional zoo but without any risks.
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| Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo |
The visitors, of course, are completely safe in the cage, even though the animals aren’t leashed or strapped in any way. People love the new program so much that the tickets for the upcoming three months are completely sold out!
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| Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo |
“We wanted to give our visitors the thrill of being stalked
and attacked by the big cats but with, of course, none of the risks,” said zoo
spokeswoman Chan Liang. “The guests are warned to keep their fingers and hands
inside the cage at all times because a hungry tiger wouldn’t know the
difference between them and breakfast.”
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| Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo |
As the enormous lion prowls atop the roof of the safari
vehicle, his pale pink tongue licking out from his massive jaws, delighted
passengers snap pictures and reach out to touch him.
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This apparent violation of the number-one rule at most zoos
— don’t pet the animals — is encouraged at Parque Safari in Chile, a sanctuary
for mistreated circus animals that turns the traditional zoo-going experience
on its head.
The zoo puts visitors in caged vehicles and drives them around
the two-hectare (five-acre) park where the lions roam free, as the hulking
carnivores get to look at the humans from up close.
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| Chineese Zoo |
A resident lion walking on top of the caged vehicle
“It’s so scary. It’s a very strange feeling, to be so close
to them, only a few centimeters away,” said visitor Carolina Gonzales Baeza.
“I think it makes you understand what it’s like to be caged
for animals, they must feel like us, frightened to be locked in without being
able to get out.”
The director of Parque Safari, Ivan Sanchez Lobos, said that
is exactly the experience he wanted to create.
“I went to other parks, in the US, in Mexico, some in South
America and I saw that the lions were kept away by electric fences. I didn’t
want that, I wanted for the lion to be active and for the humans to feel what
it’s like to be in a cage,” he said.
At Parque Safari, which opened nine years ago outside the
central city of Rancagua, most of the animals are all too familiar with life in
a cage.
The zoo takes in lions, bears, monkeys and elephants from
circuses where they have been abused and works to rehabilitate them.
“The Chilean authorities have rescued these animals and we
have brought them here because they can’t be freed, they have lost the ability
to hunt and survive,” Sanchez told AFP.
Other rescued animals are too fragile to roam free and are
kept in cages, but in far better conditions than they previously knew.
In one cage, a lion named King has been nursed back to
health after having a paw amputated. He was seized from his former owners after
they removed his claws in unsanitary conditions and the paw became badly
infected.
In another cage, two female bears sway from side to side as
they walk, a movement they developed in the circus that used to place them atop
a hot metal sheet, burning their paws and making them “dance.”
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