Japanese low-consumptive wildlife tourism: meaning and morality in hybrid online-offline spaces

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The research explores how wildlife tourism in Japan is responding to increasing consumer pressure for close, embodied encounters with captive animals. Through a multi-sited, multispecies ethnography of Ezo red foxes at five zoos, the research analysed commodified ‘fox hugs’ and feeding encounters that satisfy tourists’ desires for wildlife selfies, feelings of iyashi and social capital. These practices have raised animal welfare concerns among some tourists and observations of the foxes’ behaviour indicate that these concerns may be justified. The research concludes that more ethical iyashi experiences can be derived from captive wildlife viewing at close proximity in which the animals are not subjected to forced physical contact with tourists or made to compete for food.