The owner of Darling Downs Zoo claims the lioness was playing, not attacking, when a woman lost her arm. Photo / NewsWire
The owner of Darling Downs Zoo claims the lioness was playing, not attacking, when a woman lost her arm. Photo / NewsWire
The owner of the Queensland zoo where a woman lost her arm has denied the incident was an attack, claiming instead that one of its big cats was playing.
Emergency services were called to Darling Downs Zoo near Toowoomba about 8.30am Sunday after reports a lioness had attacked a woman.
The woman, who was later identified as the sister of co-owner Stephanie Robinson, was transported to hospital, where she remains in a stable condition.
Stephanie and her husband Steve Robinson began breeding lions in 2017 and opened Darling Downs Zoo in 2005, specialising in captive husbandry and breeding of critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable species.
Steve Robinson updated the media outside the zoo on Tuesday as it reopened.
“We’ve raised these lions ourselves,” he said. “Their temperaments are excellent. We can still interact with them through the mesh of the cage.”
When the incident happened, his sister-in-law was with her sister, Stephanie, and a carnivore keeper.
Robinson stressed his sister-in-law was not in the lions’ holding enclosure, where they were being held while the main enclosure was being cleaned.
Close by was a second keeper, well trained in first aid, who Robinson credited with saving his sister-in-law’s life.
“She actually took my wife’s leather belt off and applied a tourniquet,” he said. “Very quickly, the first aid kit was there, we wrapped her up in a thermal blanket and the paramedics locally were here very, very quickly.”
Robinson said it was hard to tell what had happened because nobody saw the attack and his sister-in-law wasn’t well enough to explain.
“There were people working very, very close nearby, but it was all over in a split second,” he said. “It was that quick that we could only surmise at this stage.”
Earlier on Tuesday, footage from a 7News report in 2023 resurfaced and shows a staff member at the zoo snuggling up to a lion through a fence.
The victim is the sister of the zoo's co-owner and is currently in stable condition. Photo / NewsWire
The short clip showed the woman leaning over to the lion and kissing its face through the fence. Lifting her hand, the staff member moved to scratch its face before the lion snapped its head upwards and bared its teeth.
A 7News report suggests the video was of Stephanie Robinson.
Steve Robinson told reporters on Tuesday it was too soon to investigate the incident because his sister-in-law was still recovering from her surgery and was “not terribly lucid”.
“We haven’t really pressed for answers as to what she was doing and how this happened,” he said.
He said in the zoo’s 20-year history, “nothing like this has ever happened before”.
“We’ve got theories but until we get fact, I’m not going to be speculating or running with any what ifs or maybes or anything like that,” he said.
“We’re still processing in our minds and coming to grips with not just what happened but what happens next.”
Robinson said the life of the “lovely lady” had been “altered” by the incident.
“Emotionally, both her and my wife are on a rollercoaster,” he said.
On Monday evening, the zoo confirmed on social media it would reopen its doors on Tuesday “with a full programme of free photo ops, educational talks and paid encounters available”.
The zoo confirmed the woman was “attacked by a lioness” and clarified she was “not in [its] enclosure” when the incident occurred.
“[The lioness] was not hungry, skinny, taunted or tortured – it is a lion,” the statement read.
“It comes from a long line of captive-born lions in Australia but it is still a lion – not a pet.”
The zoo also confirmed the creature “would not be put down or punished in any way”.
