Wildlife Safari Park tigers spend Valentine’s Day playing in their favorite pricey perfume

By Joey Safchik

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    ASHLAND, Nebraska (KETV) — At a first-of-its-kind facility at the Ashland Wildlife Safari Park, conservationists hope to breed their endangered Amur tigers. We all want to look and smell our best for a date, right? Tigers, it appears, are no different.

“Today being Valentine’s Day, we’re gonna have a little bit of fun,” said Lead Keeper Stacey Selko.

Keepers play Cupid, hoping these endangered cats get a little frisky for the sake of their species.

“They are very endangered; they are very difficult to breed in captivity,” said Superintendent Gary Pettit.

Elara and Bronevik, however, seem ready to pounce.

“Bronevik does love Elara,” said Selko, who provided the tigers with Valentine’s Day-themed enrichment toys Tuesday. “He says, Elara will you be my Valentine?”

Love is in the air at the Wildlife Park, and so is something else: Chanel No. 5. Tigers have expensive taste.

“Chanel No. 5 tends to be something that really elicits a lot of behavior, more so than other perfumes,” said Pettit.

Those keeper Cupids are armed not with an arrow but the potent secret weapon and some steak tartare, hoping for a carnivorous meet cute. The perfume is not solely a breeding tool; it also provides enrichment for the tigers. On Valentine’s Day, it was sprayed on pink boxes (the non-toxic paint rubs off on the tigers’ faces, like blush) and logs in their enclosures.

“Let him come over and investigate all of her smells and do all this marking and spraying and all that fun stuff to leave scent behind for him, because that’s what he would do in the wild,” said Selko.

Needless to say, there is not an abundance of $160 perfume bottles in the wild.

“Tigers can leave scent in a lot of different ways. So the perfume is just a way for us to kind of bring in a new scent and something fun for them to discover,” said Selko.

The musky, bold perfume is reminiscent of the smells tigers leave behind in the wild.

“We also do things that aren’t quite as sexy as Chanel No. 5, let’s say,” said Pettit.

In the animal community, it is well-known that big cats love bold smells. Donors have sent the pricey perfume bottles anonymously. Selko said Elara immediately showed particular affection for Chanel No. 5.

“You definitely learn quickly what they love and what they don’t love,” said Selko.

These keepers hope this mating season, some Coco Chanel-loving cubs might be on the way.

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