Recently it has made the headlines that Sparkwell Zoo on Dartmoor has sparked outrage amongst animal rights campaigners after it launched a tug of war game called man VS the beast using its male Tiger and male Lion to take part in a tug of war game against a human.
However, research shows that games such as these are extremely positive for the animals involved, as it gives them exercise, they find it fun and it recreates natural behaviour that they would do in the wild. It is not animal cruelty and the people involved in these animals care work hard, long hours and would never be cruel to an animal and are extremely disappointed that they have been tarnished with that brush by a bunch of people, of whom the large majority, have probably never cared for an animal like this in their lives and are purely basing this on their opinion rather than facts.
The idea of the game is to raise money to refurbish the lion den. which in its self is also extremely positive for the animals welfare.
