Hamilton Zoo under fire: 1.8m fence kept tiger from public

Hamilton Zoo's Sumatran tiger Sali in her quarantine enclosure at the zoo. Sali arrived at the facility from Dreamworld, Australia. 22 August 2012. Photo / Christine Cornege, NZ Herald

Three gates left open in 2013 incident where cat swatted keeper.

Members of the public and zoo staff were at risk during an incident in which a Hamilton Zoo keeper had a near miss with a tiger two years ago, it has been revealed.

In the 2013 incident, a keeper walked 10m into an enclosure she thought was empty before finding herself alone with 5-year-old female tiger Sali, which then ran "playfully" up to her and swatted her gumboots. The keeper managed to escape the enclosure safely.

However, a Hamilton News investigation can now reveal the path taken by tigress Sali as she made her way into the main tiger display enclosure, where the keeper was preparing to give a tiger talk, was through an area fenced only by a non-electrified weed mat-clad 1.8m fence.

Tigers can jump up to 4m. The main tiger enclosure has a 5m fence with 1m overhang.

Oz, the Sumatran tiger that killed keeper Samantha Kudeweh. Photo / Doug Sherring

Hamilton City Council said at the time the safety of the public was never compromised and blamed the keeper who left a gate open.

Zoo director Stephen Standley said: "The incident was a result of human error and failure to comply with the zoo's existing operating procedures."

The council said at the time one gate had been left open, but it is now clear that three gates were open.

The council's general manager community Lance Vervoort said last week that it was "normal practice" to leave two personnel gates open "for operational reasons".

That contradicts the zoo's operations manual at the time and Mr Vervoort's previous statement to media that "there should always be two guillotine gates between a keeper and an animal".

Mr Vervoort's statement was in response to a query about why the council had continually referred to a single gate when discussing the 2013 incident when a map drawn by Mr Standley showed the tiger walked through three open gates.

A leaked copy of Mr Standley's report into the 2013 incident shows one of the "corrective actions" listed following the incident was to replace the 1.8m fence around the tiger house with a "fully tiger-proof fence" that would be 5m high with a 1m overhang.

However, in an email a few days later to Crystal Lange, containment verifier at Ministry for Primary Industries, Mr Standley outlined a revised list of corrective actions which did not involve replacing the fence around the tiger house.

Mr Standley also noted the operations manual was to be updated to reflect the changes and assigned that task to keeper Samantha Kudeweh.

Mrs Kudeweh died on September 20 after she was mauled by male Sumatran tiger Oz.