Out of Africa Wildlife Park was founded in 1988 by a husband and wife team in Arizona. In their words... "It was a preserve born from their single-minded objective of bringing God, people, and animals together in a natural setting."
In our words... oh Jesus... this place is a disaster waiting to happen. In particular, we would like to introduce you to the comedically-dangerous "Tiger Splash Park," where you'll discover how tigers "instincts, intellect and feelings interact to form spontaneous, natural behavior." If that description isn't foreshadowing for the inevitable human mauling, I don't know what is.
Now that you get the idea, check out how safe it really is...
"You'll "oooh and aaah" while Bengal and Siberian tigers and other big cats interact in a predator/prey relationship of romping and splashing in a 35-foot by 50-foot pool as they play with their caretakers and various colorful toys." We bet they will
...more below the fold
In a moment of seriousness... check out their hair...
How do places like this get licensed to serve food, let alone train tigers to chase people with children's toys...?
Comments
The naked apes don't look too healthy. Maybe the cats shouldn't eat them.
Posted by: Ken Shabby | February 8, 2008 5:12 PM
And the shame of this is when one of these moron gets all opened up in front of all the payin' customers, some stupid son of a bitch is going to insist on having the cat killed.
Posted by: Grant Canyon | February 8, 2008 5:31 PM
How is being trained to jump around after bright plastic flotsam "spontaneous natural behavior"? The naked apes look a lot more tasty than the multi-colored balls anyway ...
Posted by: R N B | February 8, 2008 6:03 PM
"It was a preserve born from their single-minded objective of bringing God, people, and animals together in a natural setting."
If there really is a God, that couple would have been eaten 20 years ago.
Posted by: Barn Owl | February 8, 2008 7:45 PM
Hilarious. Just a matter of time...
Posted by: David Lee | February 8, 2008 8:47 PM
Ditto on what Barn Owl said.
Cripes.
Posted by: bug_girl | February 9, 2008 12:21 PM
I think they seriously lack a liger in their Arizona petting zoo.
These hybrid cats (male lion + female tiger) grow to incredible size of 900+ pounds. Just have a look at these photos:
http://www.naturesafariindia.com/liger.html
(and Benny - plase don't call me Muhammar the next time or I will throw you to my ligers)
Posted by: milkshake | February 10, 2008 8:17 AM
Why am I picturing that Futurama episode about the popplers (or whatever they were called), where the hippy is protesting outside the professors lab and he shows them the Tiger he taught to eat tofu. The Tiger is emaciated, pale, and can only cough. Fortunately or unfortunatly depending on who's side you're on, I predict these big cats are going to take a chunk out of one of these morons before too much longer.
Posted by: Orclev | February 11, 2008 4:00 PM
the Futurama piece about tofu-eating Tiger was a rip-off of some then-popular blog from 8+ years ago - about joys of living in the trailer park with a crazy dad and grown-up brother + few street dogs - I forgot the name of the blog - and there was that hilarious part about their father trying to keep the dogs on a stricly vegetable diet. "It is supposed to make the dogs mean and lean - but actually they became very slouchy, with balding patches all over. Yeah, the tomatoes are real problem"
Posted by: milkshake | February 12, 2008 12:35 AM
But don't forget that the joke was also made in the book and film 'The Road to Wellville' by T. Coreghassen Boyle, and while I can't remember when the book was written the film came out in 93 or 94. Their feeding a wolf a vegetarian diet ended badly, I recall.
Are they really feeding the animals tofu? I can't see how it would make a huge difference; protein is protein, assuming they're supplementing their diets. Some of the bodybuilding blogs I read say that tofu can affect estrogen levels in humans and reduce testosterone, so if we assume there's any truth to that it could be reducing the animals' aggression. Of course I'm assuming that bodybuilders know what they're talking about, that tofu ingestion has any effect on an animal's hormones and that testosterone IS linked to aggression. I'm making all kinds of leaps today!
Posted by: Jenbug | February 12, 2008 9:47 AM
@Jenbug:
I didn't meant to imply these people were feeding the animals tofu, the whole trying to get animals to do something outside their nature thing just reminded me of that episode from Futurama.
Posted by: Orclev | February 12, 2008 5:11 PM
Ah, forgive me, I do like to embark on journeys of extrapolation at the drop of a hat!
Posted by: Jenbug | February 12, 2008 11:33 PM