奇速英语

游客在笼子里游览动物园

As the lion prowls on the roof of the safari vehicle, his pale pink tongue licking out from his jaws, delighted passengers snap pictures and reach out to touch him. This apparent violation of the number-one rule at most zoos —don’t pet the animals— is encouraged at Parque Safari in Chile, a place for mistreated circus animals that turns the traditional zoo-going experience on its head.

The zoo puts visitors in caged vehicles and drives them around the park where the lions walk freely. “It’s a very strange feeling, to be so close to them, only a few centimeters away,” said visitor Carolina Gonzales Baeza. “I think it makes you understand what it’s like to be caged for animals, they must feel like us, frightened to be locked in without being able to get out.”

The zoo takes in lions, bears, monkeys and elephants from circuses where they have been abused. The Chilean authorities have rescued these animals and the park have brought them here because they can’t be freed—they have lost the ability to hunt and survive. Other rescued animals are too fragile to walk freely and are kept in cages. In one cage, two female bears sway from side to side as they walk, a movement they developed in the circus that used to place them atop a hot metal sheet, burning their paws and making them “dance”.

The safari drives are the main attraction at the zoo, which gets more than 1,000 visitors a day. Visitors can take a small train through fields full of sheep, horses and zebras. The star of the show is a giraffe that likes to stop by and greet the visitors, bending down to accept the tasty green leaves they hold out to her. The zoo plans to take in white and Bengal tigers in the near future to help them reproduce and to open another safari drive with tigers.