When a full-grown Amur tiger peers down on US tourists just a few feet below, it’s a new experience for cats and humans alike.

Philadelphia Zoo has unveiled an exhibit that allows its large cats to walk along enclosed, overhead trails that span the zoo’s pathways.

Tigers Wiz and Dimitri had never encountered humans at anything other than eye level before, said Kay Buffamonte, lead keeper of the zoo’s Big Cat Falls exhibit. “Being elevated for them is a position of power,” she said.

Visitors seem to be enjoying the unusual close encounters.

“At first I was like, ‘Whoa,’ and then I thought it was cool,” said Emerson Singer, six, of Philadelphia, who got a preview of the exhibit.

The project, featuring mesh-enclosed walkways just 14 feet above the ground, is part of an initiative to give animals more room to walk, run and explore.

Other zoos use smaller systems of trails, but the Philadelphia Zoo is aiming eventually to link trails across its entire 42-acre campus.

So far, the Big Cat Crossing is just 330 feet but plans call for it to be extended. Lions and snow leopards will use it as well.