Myself and a friend couldn't get rid of this one and 2 others as they surrounded the car we had to wait for the keepers to move them on The only thing they were interested in was trying to eat my camera
I don't know if they are handraised or just become very tame due to the pellet-feeding that is allowed(encouraged as you buy the food). Probably the latter. I am something of a purist and I don't enjoy seeing animals poking their heads into cars with drools of saliva flicking off their tongues. However I am sure that most visitors do! I've mentioned before that I do think this could be a health risk, particularly to small children who might feed them and then suck their own fingers and ingest animal saliva in the process. There's certainly no way to go to a washroom or tap etc when you are stuck in an animal reserve in a very slow-moving crawl of traffic. What if these antelope carried FSE for example?
I agree with you on that one Pertinax As I said it was me and a friend if I had got my nephew in the car we would have been carrying a bottle of water and some disinfecant so we could at least wipe his hands, mind you I suppose a lot of people with children don't think about these things
That's just it. Some people are very careful, others are not. There were a number of antelope at London Zoo (and other places) in the 1970's that were proved to have contracted FSE from being fed concentrated/pelleted foodstuffs in their diet. I'm not saying any at West Midlands have this or any other disease, BUT the potential is there and any direct contact always does carry a risk-look at that E Coli scare at the 'petting farms' last year.
