SAPPORO, Sep 10 (Kyoodo/APP): Over 300 animals including some predators at a privately owned zoo in northern Japan’s Sapporo face an uncertain future as they have yet to be moved from the facility due to shutter at the end of this month.
The operator of North Safari Sapporo in Hokkaido has submitted to authorities its plan to transfer out by the end of next March around 300 of the 640 animals it had at the end of last year, but it has not said what it will do with the remainder.
When the Sapporo municipal government conducted on Friday its last on-site inspection before the zoo’s closure, there were still 209 mammals, 79 birds and 31 other animals. Some of them are expected to remain in the zoo after it closes for good, the city said Tuesday.
The zoo opened in an area with zoning restrictions in 2005, without the operator, Success-Kanko Corp., obtaining the necessary permissions.
Although the city had confirmed illegal construction on the zoo’s premises as early as 2004, and on 17 occasions since had instructed the operator to remove unauthorized buildings, the number of illegal structures continued to increase until ultimately reaching 156.
It came to light in February that the zoo had been operating for some 20 years without the proper permits.
The operator announced in March that it would close the zoo by the end of September. In a subsequent report to the city, it said 210 animals, one-third of the total number under its care, were moved out by the end of March, with nearly 100 others slated for transfer by the end of March 2026.
A small business promotion agency under the industry ministry and the Sapporo government are calling for the operator to return the subsidies it previously received.
North Safari Sapporo, whose appeal included relatively close proximity to animals, billed itself as Japan’s most dangerous zoo and was promoted heavily on TV and travel-themed websites.
But some of its activities bordered on the extreme. One experience the zoo advertised was allowing visitors to feed a tiger without any protective barrier, while another claimed participants could stay in a guest room with an adjacent lion enclosure.
One sign in the zoo read, “This is no ordinary zoo. It’s dangerous. Everything comes at your own risk.”