The Wildheart Animal Sanctuary has teamed up with Airtasker UK to launch a hunt for a new chief toymaker for its tigers.
Using the Airtasker platform, the sanctuary wants to find someone to design, create and build a unique enrichment toy for the tigers that stimulates their key senses and natural instincts while challenging them physically and mentally.
In the wild tigers experience new sensations all the time so they are introduced to as many as possible in their sanctuary habitat. For example, keepers know that they are attracted by texture and they love lavender scent so keepers want somebody to create something that appeals to all their senses!
Tigers are powerful animals so the toys need to be robust and well-built so they can’t be destroyed in a matter of minutes. What’s needed are 2 key things:
- Food toys – where we can insert a treat and our tigers have to work out how to get the food – tigers are very intelligent and love a problem-solving challenge!
- Behavioural enrichment – toys that stimulate our tigers’ natural wild instincts
- Ideally made of wood, old crates, fire hose, garage springs, heavy duty hessian or bungee cord; these are hardcore, supersized versions of what you might see a domestic cat play with.
Animal Manager, Marc Fox, explains:
“Tigers are tactile animals and love to explore but if you don’t add new experiences then their habitat can quickly become mundane. We want a tiger toy is something that stimulates their key senses and challenges them both physically and mentally.”
“Whoever takes on the challenge needs to know that tigers are incredibly powerful animals but at the same time it is essential to have an element of problem solving to it, tigers are very intelligent and will enjoy the mental challenge. Airtasker is fantastic because they have a nationwide platform to take our search national and get the very best person for the job.”
The sanctuary needs someone with great DIY skills, carpentry experience, and a knack for turning scrap and junk into something great.
Marc continues:
“Don’t worry if you’re not so great on the tools – we’re also open to finding someone who can simply provide us with ideas and inspiration for what the toys could be, so let us know if you’ve got any roarsome ideas!
“For this summer, we require one or two prototype toys and some designs so we can then re-create them in our own workshop. We’ll need you to come down to the sanctuary and take a brief, meet the keepers and then work with us on the prototype designs before bringing them to the Sanctuary and delivering them to the tigers to play with.”
Air Tasker UK is offering £500 to develop the designs and a budget to pay for materials and travel is available, although the sanctuary is hoping that the new toy maker may have old scraps lying around at home that they can turn into something amazing.
