Giveaway: Secret River Safari Tours Where You Can Feed Manatees, Electric Eels & Piranhas

While we're not quite sure how sailors of yore mistook these thick-waisted aquatic mammals for beautiful young women of the sea (perhaps they were delirious after months on the waves?), legend has it that the herbivorous sea cows were the OG 'mermaids'. Okay, so Ariel these grey gentle giants may not be, but they aren't any less adorable. The hippo-seal-walrus-dolphin-elephant mash-up is friendly and docile — or at least the ones at River Safari are — and are great for kids and adults to get up close and personal with on the Manatee Mania tour.

Born in the River Safari almost four years ago, Canola (left in pic) is River Safari's animal icon and a wildlife ambassador for all threatened wildlife. Manatees eat carrots, cabbage, sweet potato leaves and special pellets prepared by their keepers, and can live up to 70 years. The largest manatee at RS weighs more than 1,100kg and consumes more than 100kg of vegetables a day. Canola can respond to simple instructions from her keepers, and is trained to roll over for medical procedures such as injections and ultrasound scans.

Apparently, very, because their teeth are at the back of their mouths, so there's little chance that they will chomp down on your fingers. Their jaws grind in an interesting circular manner. Also, they may look hefty, but don't call them fat. Their large bodies are mostly made up of their stomach and intestines, and they have little body fat.

Awwww....

They are friendly and gentle, so feel free to pet them, after checking with the keepers where you can touch them and where you should not. For the tour, which takes you to the private side of the huge manatee tank (regular park patrons would be admiring the creatures from the far end of the tank, while you get to go to the side where they can peek their heads and fins out), participants are required to wear waterproof waders, as the water would get up to almost hip-high at some points. This is also why kids have to be at least 1.2m tall. Wearing a sexy rubber apron-boot suit and wading into manatee territory, and feeding and petting them? Not a regular day.

The Amazing Amazonia tour is as cool, except that you're not quite encouraged to touch the creatures you'd be feeding. At all. We're talking about piranhas, electric eels and stingrays. While not as blood-thirsty as depicted in the movies, these denizens of the deep and not-so-deep must be handled with caution. Keepers will feed you interesting facts, and you can in turn feed the creatures using implements like tongs and fishing rods. Electrifying.