People are paying big money to visit the wildest zoo in China and it’s not what you’d expect at all. The Lehe Ledu wildlife zoo are offering to lock people up in cages and tourists are more than excited to oblige. With animal captivity a huge issue for many zoos, this Chinese zoo has found a new way to experience animal wildlife.
20. The Zoo
Image: YouTube
The Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo is unlike any zoo you’ve ever heard of before. Located in Chongqing city, the zoo is offering people an experience of a lifetime. Although some might find it dangerous many are signing up in flocks.
19. Tables Turned
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At any typical zoo throughout the world, the animals are placed inside of cages and kept away from visitors. Humans will gawk from behind the glass or the cages and admire the animals in their beauty. The Lehe Ledu zoo is turning that idea upside down…
18. Big Money
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The Lehe Ledu zoo is offering humans an experience that they’ll never forget and visitors are seemingly throwing cash wildly. Unlike other zoos, the wildlife zoo is giving people the opportunity to view animals in their natural state without keeping them captive. So how are they accomplishing this?
17. Cages
Image: Daily Mail
Instead of placing the wild animals into cages and secluded areas, it is the humans that are placed into cages. Zoo visitors are coughing up cash to be placed inside of a wire mesh cage. Visitors stand inside of the cage while animals are allowed to roam free among them.
16. The Animals
Image: Daily Mail
The animals that the zoo let roam free aren’t domesticated beasts either. Inside of the zoo, you’ll come into contact with ferocious tigers and hungry bears. Lucky visitors can even choose to feed the animals by hand.
15. Attraction
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In order to attract the animals toward the cage, zoo employees place bait on the outside of the vehicle that is transporting the visitors around. The bait often used is chunks of fresh meat that bring over some pretty hungry animals that are ready for a meal.
14. Gawking
Image: Daily Mail
From inside of the cage, visitors snap photos of the wild animals and see them behave in their natural habitats. The idea is to observe the animals without disturbing them and without becoming their next dinner too. Visitors are buying up tickets like crazy!
13. Booked Up
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While it might sound crazy and dangerous to most people, the zoo has had an influx of visitors all excited to try out the cage. The zoo has received so much publicity that their cage ride is booked up three months in advance. It seems that everyone wants a chance to get up close to some wild animals.
12. Unique Idea
Image: Daily Mail
The Lehe Ledu zoo is one of the only zoos to offer such a ‘wild’ zoo experience. You can see visitors standing inside of the cages, offering food to the lions and tigers through tiny openings inside of the cage. The cats will often jump to catch the food.
11. Thrilling Experience
Image: Daily Mail
“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. It seems that their idea has worked well since the zoo has been booked for so long and people have been known to fight over spots inside of the cage.
10. Warning
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“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,” Liang continued to explain. Although the zoo has received some positive reviews there are many people who are skeptical about the entire premise.
9. Skeptics
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The Daily Mail has reported various viewpoints on the zoo’s idea and the entire situation. They focused on some of the more skeptical viewpoints and they made a pretty compelling argument considering just how dangerous the situation could become.
8. Criticism
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In one Daily Mail article, users commented saying that the park is ‘an accident waiting to happen’. The park does not agree with the sentiment and argues that the point of the cage is to allow visitors to safely interact with wild animals in a way they never could have otherwise.
7. Still Going
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Despite all of the negative feedback that people can find online, visitors are still lining up to visit the zoo. The Internet reviews have not been a deterrence at all and many people are still just as excited to say that they got a chance to be in the cage. Take a look at one visitor’s review.
6. Unique Experience
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“It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before in a zoo,” said visitor Tao Jen. “We’re not looking at them, they’re looking at us — and we’re lunch.” Despite knowing that the animals may feast upon them, visitors still find the experience thrilling and worthwhile.
5. Still Open
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The zoo first opened in 2015 and is still offering people cage rides. While in the beginning most of the visitors were tourists, word of the park’s unique experience spread throughout the world. Now visitors from around the world are also lining up to get up close to the giant cats and bears.
4. Another Zoo
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Although there aren’t many out there, there are zoos that practice this method of caging humans as opposed to animals. Orana Wildlife Park Lion Encounter in New Zealand allows people to travel around in a similar cage while interacting with free roaming lions. The park’s 13 lions come out to play with the visitors in a daring manner.
3. Park PR
Image: Daily Mail
“Our trained animal keeping staff are on board the vehicle to feed the lions,” Nathan Hawke, public relations manager at Orana Wildlife Park told The Dodo. “However, this feed is not part of their main ‘meal’ and the cats choose whether to approach the vehicle or not.”
2. Positive Change
Image: Orana Wildlife Park
Still, many people see this type of zoo experience as a positive change in terms of how humans view wild animals.
“This appears to present a positive change away from the traditional arrangement of animals in cages being surrounded by visitors,” Chris Draper, programs manager at Born Free Foundation, told The Dodo.
1. The Zoos
Image: YouTube
The zoos are still garnering tons of online attention due to their unorthodox ways of interacting with animals. While many people still find the experience to be unnerving, there are still many others that are willing to line up in order to experience the thrill of being face-to-face with a lion.