At the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park in Northern China, feeding time has become something of a spectator sport. The park is reportedly home to around 1 000 tigers and it’s also one of the world’s largest and most successful conservation parks for endangered animals.

The park, which was intended to be a sanctuary and breeding center, has become a stop for many excited tourists. Choosing from a menu, patrons now have the opportunity to watch the tigers being fed their choice item.

If the food item of choice is a large one, like a cow for instance, then the visitors get to view the scene from what the park calls the “Number One Adventure Bus”.

If the item is smaller, like a chicken, the spectacle is viewed from within a section of the park’s perimeter buildings. But, if you stock up on chickens, they’ll use a bakkie and dispense the poor chickens to the tigers like chips to hungry seagulls.

In January, a bus driver was killed, after being dragged off by one of the park’s tigers during an attempt to check the bus’s engine; as one does in a tiger sanctuary.

Reactions have naturally been varied. Some find it a novel effort to protect the endangered tigers (there remain approximately 20 in the wild in China), and others question whether the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park is making a spectacle out of conservation.

You’re in for about R50 a chicken, R600 a sheep and about R2 000 for a cow.

[Source: TimeNewsFeed]