Are safari parks better than 'traditional' zoos?

Although sometimes offering larger enclosures to animals, safari parks are essentially zoos with the same issues and animal welfare/rights problems.

For example, Woburn Safari Park was keeping its lions locked into small enclosures for 18 hours a day. A government zoo inspection report in 2010 said: “The animals were very crowded and there was no provision for individual feeding or sleeping areas. There was no visible environmental enrichment. Some of the lions exhibited skin wounds and multiple scars of various age, some fresh, some healed.”

In late 2012, another safari park was shamed as West Midland Safari Park was exposed for providing white lion cubs to a notorious circus animal trainer, who sent them to a travelling circus in Japan.

Chessington World of Adventures decided to mix wild animals with theme park rides. In 2018 the park opened a new ''Tiger Rock' log flume. In video footage of the ride, the carriage holding visitors is seen to pass by a series of large glass windows looking in on the endangered tigers held captive there. Overhead walkways for the tigers go over the log flume path.

We fundamentally believe that wild animals should be wild, free to experience all the complexities of their own lives. We must consider that an animal living in the wild would be free to roam, in some animals cases they can travel for thousands of miles. They would be free to raise a family, forage, play, eat their natural foods and find a mate. They can go where they choose to when they want to. When they are kept captive for entertainment purposes, this is denied to them.