Families staying overnight in a zoo and theme park In Australia were given just seconds to get out after a group of lions escaped from their enclosure. You can see the aftermath - plus some interviews - in the video below:
The families were staying in accommodation called ‘Roar and Snore’ at Taronga Zoo in Sydney at the time of the incident and claim that they had only 30 seconds notice to get out and find safety after five lions got out at around 6:30 am local time.
Magnus and Dominique Perri, as well as their two sons Lucas and Oliver, were inside the tents when an alarm went off at around 6:40am and staff started shouting about evacuating the premises.
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Four cubs and one adult lion escaped, prompting a full lockdown of the zoo.
Mr Perri said afterwards that the whole thing ‘happened so quickly’.
He told Metro: “They said ‘Hurry up! Don’t worry about your things. This is a Code One. Get out of your tent. Leave your belongings behind. You have 30 seconds to get out’,’
“People were running out.”
As well as Mr Perri and his young family, there were also 50 other people in the Roar and Snore campsite, which allows people to spend the night over at the zoo.
In normal circumstances, it sounds like a lot of fun, but on this occasion it must have been a nightmare.
Apparently, the keepers could be heard screaming ‘they’re still outside’ before four of the lions returned back into their enclosure and another was tranquilised.
A spokesperson for the zoo confirmed that no-one was injured, although an explanation for how the lions managed to get out of their enclosure has not yet been given.
There will – of course – be an investigation into the circumstances that led to the lions’ escape, with the zoo’s executive director Simon Duffy referring to it as a ‘significant incident’.
He told local media outlets that the lions had found their way into an area ‘adjacent’ to their enclosure, about 100m from where the overnight guests were staying.
The zoo was closed at the time of their escape.
The area they’d got into was surrounded by a tall fence that usually keeps people safe from the animals, and the whole zoo is ringed in another perimeter fence.
The alarm was raised within 10 minutes of the escape.
Mr Duffy said that once everyone had been made safe, the lions ‘calmly made their way back’ to the enclosure.
Now, the enclosure will remain closed until it can be made ‘100 percent safe’, Mr Duffy said.
Tom Wood