Tug-of-war with a tiger? There’s only one winner
Luke Mintz finds himself at the end of his rope as he takes the human vs beast challenge at Dartmoor Zoo
When I first looked into the tiger’s cold, yellow pupils, I knew the odds were stacked against me. I was due to play tug-of-war with the hulking creature, and I pictured myself plonked in the middle of its enclosure, fighting off the hungry cat as bloodthirsty onlookers jeered and made bets on my imminent death.
But the Human vs Beast competition is actually a popular new attraction at Dartmoor Zoo, south Devon, where – for £15 – visitors as young as eight can see how they fare against a lion or tiger. Opening this week in time for the February half-term, the tug-of-war has prompted predictable outrage on social media, with animal rights activists accusing the zoo of acting “like a circus” and showing a “lack of respect for these beautiful, majestic animals”. The Born Free Foundation asked: “Is [this] really the way to inspire respect for these animals?”
The zoo, however, says the game enriches the great cats, helping them physically and psychologically, and closely replicating the battles they would face in the wild.
That is how, on an unseasonably warm February afternoon, I found myself face-to-face with a 26-stone (170kg) male Siberian tiger named Dragan.
Well, not quite face-to-face: to my relief, there was a sturdy metal fence between the two of us.
First, the zoo rather bizarrely warned me about the risks of rope burn. Then I was led into a restricted area next to the tiger’s enclosure, and was suddenly standing just feet away from the beast. I couldn’t help feeling a little queasy. I knew, of course, that the zoo wouldn’t let any harm come my way, but there is something almost primal when you stand so near to a big cat. Your midriff region seems desperate to escape.
A rope was fed beneath the mesh fence surrounding Dragan’s enclosure, with a horse’s hoof attached to the end to serve as bait. On one end was myself and three other men, and on the other end was Dragan. I wondered when he had last eaten. Heavy on his paws, Dragan pounded towards the hoof and grabbed hold of it with his mouth, beginning to pull. The force was immense. The four of us gasped and groaned, putting in every scrap of energy we had, but the tiger barely seemed to break a sweat. His supremely powerful jaws made it feel as if we were being tugged on the motorway by a heavy lorry.
The best we could hope for was stalemate. Once or twice, we tried to outsmart the beast, relaxing our hold on the rope before counting down from three and all pulling suddenly at the same time. The strategy worked for just a second each time, giving us an inch of leeway, before Dragan realised what we were up to and yanked us back.
Before long, he was lying down, chewing gently on the bait, as the four of us continued to pull with all our might. He seemed to have forgotten about the competition entirely. We lasted for just two or three minutes before exhaustion kicked in and we gave up. The great cat had defeated us.
Defeating Dragan was not completely out of the question: before my turn I watched three bodybuilders having a go, and at some points they did tug the tiger towards them.
One of the many charges that have been levelled against the game is that it is “disrespectful” to the animals.
Sue Dally, whose petition against the practice has attracted nearly 3,000 signatures, said it uses the tigers as a “novelty plaything for tourists”. Even the RSPCA, which agrees that the game provides “physical enrichment” for the big cats, suggests that it “does not promote respect” for animals.
But Benjamin Mee, the zoo’s CEO, thinks the game is more humiliating for us humans than it is for the tiger. Indeed, Dragan beat four of us without ever seeming to struggle, and by the end, not a single onlooker could have been in any doubt about the awesome power of these majestic creatures.
I was also struck by the disconnect between social media and real life. On Twitter and Facebook, the zoo received hundreds of abusive messages. But at the zoo, amid the crisp air of Devon’s rolling hills, the crowd lapped up every second.
Mr Mee defended the game as “brilliant enrichment for the animal”, adding: “It simulates a little bit of the forces in the wild, which is really hard to do in captivity. The massive majority of people have taken it like that and it’s just a few loud voices from keyboards miles away that seem to have got the wrong idea.” I left the zoo with my tail between my legs.