Last year Chris hit the BIG 4 0 and Caroline treated him to a short break at Port Lympne Hotel and Reserve. In June 2025 we finally managed to find a gap in our show schedule, booked the glamping pod and had the best time! 
One of the biggest highlights for us was being able to walk around the park, after hours! Once the park closed and all the day visitors left, we were able to really explore Port Lympne - lets just say the animals really do come to life at night!
We were lucky enough to catch the wolves howling and listening to the lions roaring at 2am was so surreal!
We also managed to see six Pallas kittens playing at sunset after a long day of snoozing in their cave - if we hadn't of stayed on site, we wouldn't of seen these cute balls of fluff, we walked past the enclosure a few times during the day and it looked empty!
When we visited Howletts Wild Animal Park, we manage to hear one of the ranger talks about enrichment for the big cats. As you know, we are all about enrichment and love hearing about all the great things they do for the animals. After the talk, Caroline started chatting to the ranger about enrichment and Snuffle Monsters, one thing lead to another and they kindly wrote the blog below for us...
"At Howletts Wild Animal Park, enrichment is a huge part of the care of our animals. It encourages them to exhibit natural behaviours as well as promoting physical exercise and mental stimulation. We have several species of large carnivore at Howletts including lions, tigers, snow leopards, leopards, wolves and painted dogs. Our keepers are always coming up with new ways to keep their minds busy and their bodies active! One of the main enrichment types we use is scent based enrichment and this is what I’ll be focussing on in this blog post.
So, what is scent enrichment? Scent enrichment involves introducing new or unusual scents into the animal’s environment to encourage them to use their sense of smell. This is particularly important in captive carnivores as, in the wild, many of them would be using their sense of smell constantly. Below are some of the ways we use scent-based enrichment and how they benefit our large carnivores.
1. Perfumes
We use perfumes in a variety of ways. One of those is by spraying them in different areas around the enclosures on logs, fence posts, trees and rocks. This disrupts the natural scent of the animal’s enclosure which encourages scent marking, a behaviour they would exhibit in the wild.
Another way we use perfumes is along with enrichment toys including boomer balls, tyres and hessian sacks. The keepers will spray the perfumes on the toys encouraging the animals to interact with them. Play is a huge part of an animal’s life, even for lions, tigers and wolves!
2. Blood trails
When we feed our large carnivores, we save some of the blood from the meat we give them to create tasty treats like blood ice lollies but will also use some for blood trails in their enclosures. This encourages the animals to use their noses to follow a scent, often leading to food. This replicates the animals using their sense of smell to help locate their prey in the wild.
3. Hiding food
When we feed our large carnivores it’s important we encourage their natural hunting behaviours as much as possible. One way we do this is by hiding their food. This may be in a tree, behind a rock or at the top of a wooden pole. In the wild, their food would not be served in a dish all neatly diced up, so of course this isn’t how we feed them at Howletts! By hiding the food, the animals have to search for it using their sense of smell, just like they would in the wild. Particularly for species like lions, tigers and leopards, hanging food at the top of a tall pole encourages physical exercise and allows them to use the same muscles to climb the pole that they would be using to chase and take down their prey.
4. Hessian sacks filled with bedding from prey species
We are lucky to have over 40 different species at Howletts, many of which are prey species. This means we can use their dirty bedding as great scent enrichment for some of our predators! Our African painted dogs in particular love hessian sacks filled with bedding from our elephants or buffalo!
While enrichment is important, enclosure design also plays a huge part in the wellbeing of our animals and can also enrich their lives. For example, tigers love water so we have two pools in our Sumatran tiger enclosure that you’ll often find them relaxing in in warm weather. We also have high platforms in our tiger, lion, leopard and snow leopard enclosures which allow these animals to gain a high vantage point and enjoy a nap! Long grass and hiding spots provide our animals with a place to relax.
To conclude, enrichment can be used for all species big and small. Enrichment promotes lots of natural behaviours and it is very mentally stimulating. It is a really important part of the wellbeing of our animals at Howletts Wild Animal Park"
Ranger Department
Howletts Wild Animal Park and Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve
This blog was written and provided by the Ranger Department from Howletts Wild Animal Park and Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve exclusively for Snuffle Monsters. July 2025