New Chief Toymaker Sought For The Isle Of Wight's Tigers

Tuesday, 22 June 2021 15:40

By Iona Stewart-Richardson @IslandIona

The Isle of Wight's Wildheart Animal Sanctuary is looking for a new chief toymaker for the tigers.

The site in Sandown is looking for someone to design, create and build a unique enrichment toy that stimulates their key senses and natural instincts while challenging them physically and mentally.

In the wild tigers experience new sensations and believe it or not they love the smell of lavender so staff are on the lookout for 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.

There are two things needed with the design:

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.

The new toymaker needs to have great DIY skills, carpentry experience and a knack for turning scrap and junk into something great.

Don’t worry if you’re not so great on the tools - the sanctuary is also looking for someone who can put forward ideas and inspiration for what the toys could be.

For this summer, one or two prototype toys and some designs are needed so they can be re-created.

Animal Manager, Marc Fox, said:

“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.”