Dear John,

Can you help us with this important action?

You may have read our recent article regarding the case of Pāora, a kiwi held prisoner in Miami Zoo, subjected to manhandling by staff and visitors as part of their $20 ‘Kiwi Encounter’ offering.

The uproar from the people of New Zealand against the mistreatment of their national bird was so strong that the zoo stopped offering the encounter. But across the world, and very much in the UK, zoos still market experiences where visitors can handle animals. This has to stop.

You can help to make that happen by getting involved in this important action today!

Animals are not toys, yet zoos sell access to them as though they are playthings, and they often do so through companies such as Virgin Experience Days.

Virgin Experience Days offers multiple animal ‘encounters’ at ‘Britain’s worst zoo’, South Lakes Safari Zoo - a real hell on earth for the animals imprisoned there. There have been calls for the zoo to be closed from multiple different bodies for many years now, including our own petition to have it shut down, yet Virgin Experience Days helps to prop this business up and prolong the animals’ suffering by selling their ‘encounters’.

They also sell a ‘Swimming with Crocodiles’ experience at a pet shop in Bristol, in which multiple participants of seemingly any age are put into a swimming pool with crocodiles kept by an individual who, through a technicality in animal licensing procedure, doesn’t even have a licence to keep dangerous wild animals!

We are calling on Virgin Experience Days to immediately and permanently stop the sale of animal encounters, ‘zookeeper’, and animal handling experiences, and we need your help.

• Tweeting @VirginExp, @Virgin, and/or @richardbranson asking that they stop selling animal experiences
• Leaving a comment on Virgin Experience Days’ Facebook page
• Leaving a comment on Virgin Experience Days’ Instagram
• Heading to our website to use our form to send an email to Virgin Experience Days’ buying team

Thank you for your support with this important action. As always, we appreciate your vital help in the fight for animal freedom, and I will keep you updated as the campaign progresses!

For the animals


Laura Walton
Campaigns Manager
Freedom for Animals