Inside the controversial restaurant in China where guests dine with lion cubs

Nowadays there all sorts of “experiences” that consumers can pay to have but one on offer at a upscale restaurant in northeast China is raising eyebrows and drawing rebuke from animal welfare activists.

Wanhui restaurant in Taiyuan city lets customers cuddle with lion cubs and interact with other animals while enjoying a meal. For its part, the establishment says that the lion cubs are well taken care of in its defense.

Lion cub hugs and tea for $150

Wanhui opened its doors in June and sells roughly 20 tickets per day for a set four-course tea menu that runs 1,078 yuan, or about $150, that also gives customers the chance to snuggle with the two lion cubs present during business hours on the premises. The restaurant also features on its page on Douyin, China’s counterpart to social media app TikTok, deer, llamas and turtles that clients can physically interact with while dining.

Some who have visited Wanhui restaurant have posted photos and videos of their encounters on China’s WeChat and Weibo.

Those have mostly drawn criticism from other users of the social media platforms like one Weibo user who said: “This is for the rich to play,” reports Reuters. Another called on the authorities to look into the matter and “take care of it.”

A China policy expert for Humane World for Animals, Peter Li, told Reuters that, “exploiting wild animals for selfies and marketing gimmicks is not only appallingly bad animal welfare, it’s also potentially risky for customers.”

“Even a young lion is capable of lashing out and injuring a human. So, treating wild animals like props is both morally unacceptable and dangerously irresponsible,” he added.

PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker told the outlet that “tearing lion cubs from their mothers so diners can handle them over afternoon tea is exploitation, not entertainment. These animals are living, feeling beings, not toys… treated like nothing more than social media props.”

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