People can feed tigers at an Edinburgh Zoo experience (stock image) (Image: Getty)
A zoo’s £2,000 tiger experience has been called “exploitation” by animal rights activists.
The charity One Kind slammed Edinburgh Zoo for having an attraction where untrained people are able to interact closely with the wildlife.
The Build Your Own Wild Experience includes lunch for two, a coffee and cake voucher, 30-minute sessions with four different animals and their keepers and the rest of the day to roam about the park.
One of the 30-minute animal sessions is feeding the Sumatran tigers Dharma and Lucu through a wire mesh fence. Normally done by keepers in an area off limits to the public, the animals pull meat off tongs.
But Eve Massie Bishop, from One Kind, said: “We are completely opposed to this commercial exercise that will exploit these animals to generate revenue for the zoo.
“It is very concerning that members of the public, without any comprehensive training, will be allowed to get up close to, and in some cases even touch and handle, these wild animals.
“While a trainer will be on hand, a great deal of trust is put into what will likely be unqualified and under-equipped strangers. We fear that this could pose a real risk to the welfare of the animals.”
The charity has called the experience exploitative and is already opposed to keeping wild animals in zoos, where their needs are unlikely to be met.
Eve continued: “We would urge members of the public to forgo this very costly experience and instead opt to support local conservation programmes that focus on protecting these animals in their natural habitats.”
Lindsay Ross, Edinburgh Zoo’s events and experiences manager, insisted the unique experience was secure and visitors would still be outside the main enclosure.
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She said: “You don’t get to hand feed the tigers obviously. You use tongs, which are similar to a litter pick and it’s bits of meat from a bucket.
“You go to where people wouldn’t be allowed because we have multiple stand off areas before the last fence but you go with the keeper so its supervised to make sure nobody puts fingers through the fence.”
She told the the idea came from the success of £5,000 private tours set up during the final year of the giant pandas’ residence in the capital. It did 17 private sessions with them in 2023.
Other animal parks also offer special experiences. Visitors to London Zoo can be ‘keepers’ of individual animals for around £95. Chester Zoo advertises packages to be zookeepers for a day with a ‘Secret Life of the Zoo’ tour.