Alpaca Fureai Land
It’s been a while since we’ve covered one of Japan’s many pet cafes. We’ve visited puppy cafes, kitty cafes including one with a capybara, and a place with a whole mess of strange animals. Since we got our own cute little puppy, we’ve had less incentive to go visit other cuddlemuffins. But when we heard there was a cafe in Tokyo that lets visitors play with great big animals not often seen in Japan, we knew we had to give it a visit.
Alpaca Fureai Land: Tokyo’s alpaca cafe
Fureai Land is located in Kagurazaka, not far from the Canal Cafe. It’s home to several alpacas - according to the brochures, there are four of them, with two in there at any given time. They offer experiences where you can eat lunch with the alpacas or take them on their morning walk to the park if you’re willing to show up at 6 a.m. We were not, so we stopped in at 2:30 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday for a visit.
There’s two entrances - you have to walk past the first one and go into the gift shop, where you pay and receive a lanyard. We also got a basket of food (some veggies and a pill bottle of pellet treats). The gift shop is full of alpaca stuffed animals and stuff like alpaca socks. Unlike most animal cafes, you aren’t forced to get a drink - you just pay and go next door where the alpacas are.
Meet the alpacas
Alpacas, of course, are named after Albert Paca, the first man to cover a donkey with a shag carpet. These two girls, Akane and Satsuki, were BIG - bigger than Eriko expected but exactly as big as I expected because I’m like super smart. They weren’t as fluffy as we thought they’d be - these strange haircuts are their summer ‘dos.
They were friendly! Akane came right over and licked Eriko. Their wrangler was very comfortable with them, teaching us where to touch (not on the head or butt!) and showing us their teeth (they only have bottom teeth!) and helping us take pictures. These two were sisters, and apparently they sometimes spit on each other when they fight. That’s not as bad as males, who really battle if they get into it.
The alpacas were soft - it was like feeling a rug - but they didn’t do a ton. They were mostly interested in food. We were only there half an hour, and that was plenty of time. But there aren’t just alpacas - there’s also cute bunnies!
The bunnies at Fureai Land
These two guys are named Anko and Kinako (two kinds of Japanese sweets). Anko didn’t mind being pet, but Kinako was a little more shy. They have their own little corner where you can check them out. The rabbit hutch was in a small fenced-off area where you can stand away from the alpacas. This fenced-off area is necessary because you need a safe place to stand while feeding the alpacas so they don’t get too aggressive. However, I guess the guy decided we were fun, because he just let us feed them inside the main room without standing behind the fence. Oh, boy.
Food frenzy
The alpacas went NUTS for the food. As soon as they saw it, they chased us like crazy, and they are hard to stop when they want something. Both Eriko and I got bit, and it hurt for several minutes afterward. They could definitely really hurt us if they wanted to. The way they went after the treats reminded me of the deer in Nara. Our food didn’t last long.
A question that came to my mind was: are these animals too big for a pet cafe? There were no kids in there with us, but if there had been, I might have been worried about their safety. I wasn’t really thinking of danger, more concerned with whether it was cruel to keep them in a small space all day. There's not a lot of room for these guys. It's basically a tiny petting zoo, though at least at a petting zoo, they'd be outside and not in the middle of a city. I don't know how great either one is for the animals. I don't know enough about alpacas to know how much space they need or what their natural state is.
Small animals, it really doesn’t bother me if they’re at a cafe. The dogs and cats we’ve been around at these places are having fun, and the piggies at Mipig Cafe absolutely love cuddling with people. But these alpacas are big. I’d say this is the upper limit for how big of an animal you'd want at one of these places. I wouldn't feel right if a tiger or elephant or giraffe were kept in a cafe, for example. The alpacas enjoyed the treats, but I’m not sold on the idea that they enjoyed our general presence. We may have been bothering them.
Even beyond the “too big” question, this cafe raises an issue of whether or not this type of place is a good thing or a bad thing. As I said, with small animals, I’m not too concerned. But should alpacas be at a cafe in the middle of a city?
Should you visit the alpaca cafe? Thoughts on animal tourism.
First off, I want to make it clear that these alpacas seemed close with their handler and appeared well taken care of. There are plenty of rules in the cafe to avoid problems like visitors hurting them or touching them in ways they don’t want to be touched. For most people, that would be enough - it isn’t like those tiger experiences where the animals are drugged to keep them docile, or the horror stories you hear about abused elephants and zoos where huge cats are kept in tiny cages. But I couldn’t help thinking this wasn’t the same as a cafe filled with kittens.
You can see above that we got some nice pictures. In a half hour, that’s really what we got: the chance to feed and touch an alpaca, and some pictures of us with it. Unlike the puppies at Cafe Rio, they didn’t run around and play. They just stood where they were directed in exchange for treats. It reminded me of the corgi cafe we visited in Bangkok or the elephant sanctuary on Koh Samui - they’re not frolicking and having fun, just doing photo ops for treats.
Is that so bad? Well, again, it’s certainly better than a lot of animal experiences. But to me, there is an inherent problem with animal tourism, even if it’s “kind” animal tourism like this place, which seems to take good care of the animals.
You could go to an elephant sanctuary where they supposedly take good care of the elephants, like we did in Thailand. We have no way of knowing how nice they are to the elephants once we leave, so it’s all based on trust. All I saw was elephants not behaving as they would in the wild, standing still all day long and letting themselves be touched and photographed in exchange for food. Not great, but if they’re rescued from a cruel painting operation, that seems okay.
But what happens when I go home and put my elephant pictures up on Instagram? People will scroll along, see me with an elephant, and say, “Oh, cool, he got a picture with an elephant. I want a picture with an elephant too.” Then that person goes to an elephant-picture place - except they don’t do the research I did and end up going to a cruel place that hurts the animals. By spreading those pictures, I’m encouraging animal tourism, which encourages more businesses that put elephants in places where elephants don’t belong.
That’s my issue here. I think they are nice to the alpacas at this cafe, and maybe an alpaca is small enough to be cool with hanging out in a city (as the deer in Nara certainly seem to be). But if I brag about chilling with alpacas at a cafe, and that leads to more alpaca businesses that are based in cruelty, that would be a bad thing. That’s why even though we held a koala and chilled with wallabies in Australia and went to the elephant sanctuary in Thailand, I’m against animal tourism even when it appears kind, and wouldn’t want to visit those places again now that I’ve spent some time thinking about it.
The same goes for the alpaca cafe. It’s a nice place, and the people seemed decent, but in general, I don’t think this type of animal should be at a city cafe, and don’t want to encourage people to seek out big-animal experiences. That’s why we’ve kept the YouTube videos for this post unlisted, so people won’t be stumbling across them without this important context.
If someone wants to hang out with big animals, I totally get it. There’s all kinds of gray area here, and I don’t think it’s a moral issue. If you are going to go to an alpaca experience, this seems like a good place to do it. But maybe a “good” alpaca cafe isn’t possible if it encourages more animal tourism. Decide for yourself, I guess. But we thank Alpaca Fureai Land for having us, and appreciate how they treated the animals while we were there.
Where to find Alpaca Fureai Land
Address: 〒162-0832 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Iwatocho, 19 一五屋ビル 102
Phone: +81 03-5227-6088
Website: Alpaca Fureai Land
Hours: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. every day but Monday.
The closest subway stations are Iidabashi Station, Kagurazaka Station, and Ushigome-Kagurazaka Station. The alpaca cafe is also quite close to Canal Cafe, Point et Ligne bakery, and a decent salad place called With Green if you’re looking for a healthy lunch.
