Animal kingdom

BEWDLEY, England — If you don't mind being the one in the cage while wild animals roam about you, and you relish having a giraffe slurp food off your palm, the West Midland Safari and Leisure Park in Bewdley, Worcestershire, England, may be for you.

This unusual adventure is much like the one depicted in "Jurassic Park," except the animals are not prehistoric — and are safely contained.

But when the big, electric gates slowly open and then clang closed behind your car while you move from kingdom to kingdom, it's a little eerie.

Inside the car, visitors are safe even though surrounded by wild animals including lions, tigers, wolves, wild dogs and wildebeests with large horns.

Elephants, camels, kangaroos, white wallabies and rhinoceroses just stand around and stare from afar.

Others, like white tigers, ignore humans completely.

Mama and Papa White Lion try to herd their four, precious, blue-eyed cubs — the first white lion cubs born in the United Kingdom — away from prying eyes. Maryn, the mom, and Mubuto, the dad, tend to be protective, so convertibles and open three-wheelers are not allowed inside the lion compound.

And there's no feeding the lions.

Meanwhile, visitors are encouraged to offer food to the friendly animals, such as giraffes, yaks, antelope, zebras and various kinds of goats, but it takes courage to offer pellets and a full set of fingers to something with obviously sharp teeth.

It's also hard to submit one's palm to a rough tongue and be slimed — which the giraffes tend to do.

Visitors are told to keep the windows partially up so an animal cannot put its head completely inside the car. But some of the wildebeests are really bold, so be prepared.

(Years ago, the park had monkeys that routinely pulled off windshield wipers and antennas, so today there are no monkeys running free on the grounds.)

The safari park is popular, so it's best to arrive early in the morning or come late in the afternoon, when the animals have not had their fill of the special diet pellets. The 100-acre park opens at 10 a.m. each day and closes at 5 p.m. from March through October.

The 4-mile self-drive tour takes an hour and 15 minutes, but if there's a big line of cars, it can take much longer. If one of the animals decides to stop and stand in front of a vehicle, it takes even longer.