You can now sleep among tigers as lodge at West Midland Safari Park opens to guests
Wildlife lovers can now spend the night up close and personal with some of the most beautiful, yet fearsome, creatures on the planet.
West Midland Safari Park announced on Friday that it had opened its Tiger Lodges, which will allow guests to sleep just a whisker away from its Sumatran tigers.
Four lodges have been created, some with a hot tub and some without.
Those with a hot tub are detached, single-storey cabins which can sleep up to five people across two bedrooms. It has an open-plan living and dining area along with floor-to-ceiling windows looking into the Sumatran tiger habitat.
Meanwhile a covered garden area contains a sunken hot tub next to a large window, allowing you to sit out and enjoy watching the big cats in perfect safety.
The lodges without a hot tub are two-storey and can sleep up to seven people. Downstairs contains a living area and master bedroom, while upstairs contains three single beds and a bathroom.
The park says each Sumatran tiger has its own stripe pattern, and they love going in their own water pools to cool off.
Nakal is an eight-year-old male who moved to West Midland Safari Park from London Zoo in 2016 while Dourga is a 10-year-old female who arrived from Fota Wildlife Park in Ireland in July this year.
To help identify which is which, Dourga is described as having thinner stripes and two circles at the top of her back right leg. Meanwhile, Nakal has thicker whiskers, thicker black stripes and oval-shaped stripe pattern along his sides.
The experience is not cheap.
Staying in the Tiger Lodge costs £790 per night, based on two guests with additional adults costing £175 per night and children aged between three and 15 costing £125 per night. Under threes are charged £20.
The ticket includes exclusive use of a lodge, two-day admission ticket to the Safari Park and attractions, breakfast and dinner, 24-hour concierge and widescreen TV, while all comforts in the lodges such as bedding, microwave and WiFi are also thrown in.
Other lodges at West Midland Safari Park include: cheetah; elephant; giraffe; rhino; red panda. Tickets can be booked at www.safari-lodges.co.uk/tiger-lodge/.
The Tiger Lodges are part of a brand-new tiger habitat – Tiger Tropics - which opens on Saturday.
Tiger Tropics will be accessible from the park's adventure theme park area and guests can view the tigers from two points through glass. The new habitat has been designed to be enriching and encourage as many natural behaviours as possible. It includes scratching posts, exploration areas, vantage points, feeding points, two pools, heat pads and the planting in the habitat is a mix of tropical and native species, including bamboo.
It is estimated that there are fewer than 4,000 tigers left in the wild and only 400 of those are Sumatran tigers, gaining them their ‘critically endangered’ status from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
The park hopes that the new tiger development shows the commitment it has to building a lasting legacy for these animals. Tigers can still be seen on the park’s four-mile safari, including female Sumatran tiger, Hujan and white tigers Ben and Buster.
