Sorbets flavoured with mackerel fish, beef blood and fruit were handed out to animals in a safari park near Paris on Wednesday during searing high temperatures around the French capital, the zoo said.
Bears in the Thoiry park, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Paris, were treated to the mackerel refreshments, while the big cats licked beef blood ice blocks and monkeys got frozen fruit.
"The mackerel sorbets are five-litre blocks of ice with the heads and tails of mackerel poking out," the creator of the zoo, Paul de La Panouse, told AFP.
"The bears fight for them in the water and this creates a social link which is usually absent because they are solitary animals."
Ice is handed out every morning, he said, adding that the emus at the park were given a shower once a day, much to the amusement of onlookers.
"They come and take their shower in a very disciplined manner, respecting the hierarchy of the group," he said.
Prolonging nearly two weeks of stifling heat, the temperature in Paris was about 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.
