A safari park has said it is not a "petting zoo" after a family were left "terrified" when a bear attacked their car. Six-foot bear attacks family's car
Judging by the photos, “attack” seems a bit extreme. Looks like the bear’s merely investigating and, reading into the keeper’s comments, it would seem this family’s far from blameless. God knows what the reaction would’ve been if it were the lions or tigers. Obviously a slow news day.
Or somebody trying to get money out of Woburn,either way its not as bad as it sounded,any way she cannot have been that scared as she took alot of pictures of the attack.
Come on, do either of you have reasoning/evidence for these opinions or are you just taking a, knee jerk, pro-zoo stance? If you have justification please state it as otherwise you risk coming across as entrenched zealots defending a position regardless of evidence (and none of us like this when the "antis" do it). Whilst I do agree the incident has been sensationalised I'm not sure either of the above conclusions are proven. An official saying the place is not a petting zoo could imply the family were treating it as such and doing things they shouldn't have but equally it could, not unreasonably, be an attempt to remind people of the (implicitly accepted) risk of visiting a safari park (i.e. "arse covering"). Who's to say what a reasonable reaction for an individual is in an unfamiliar situation and, let's not forget, it's possible to be simultaneously scared and take pictures (as footage of many terrorist attacks prove). I know this post might not be popular but if we're defending zoos we need, as far as possible, to state facts and make logical arguments otherwise we come off looking like "them".
A few years ago I saw a tiger sink it's teeth into the rear spoiler of the car in front, keepers did move it off but the driver couldn't do anything as it was blocked in by people stopping on both sides so we all had to stop ! This was at Longlrat and they did offer to pay for the damage, saw the owner in the car park later It's one of the reasons I won't go in monkey enclosures of many zoos, despite the notices telling you to stop on the left only people will insist on blocking the road, if you keep moving animals move on, which would probably have been the case in this instance
Don't safari parks have notices at the gates stating - You are entering at your own risk. Surely this covers them for incidents like this and the one at West Midlands Safari Park.
I had my first visit to Woburn last Thursday, was impressed with the place some parts were closed i.e Australian walkabout. I did not realise the amount of black squirrels they had there another first for me, the male Lion Joco was in the paddock attached to the lion house while all the females were out in the main area. Joco looked very thin on his back end but there were notices up to say he arrived in 2017 and they are still introducing him to a couple of females at a time, will put some photos up in gallery later on.
We went on an experience thing at Woburn in 2016 and had a very similar conversation with the keeper about their former male lion who's name escapes me atm. They struggled to integrate him with the females - he wasn't dominant enough and they refused to accept him. I believe he did also not enjoy the safari park experience having been raised in a zoo environment which obviously didn't help - but the keeper said there were a couple of their females who had been particularly problematic. Perhaps they are experiencing the same issues with Joco.
