Zion's big cat pride set for a public revival

Friday, 11 May 2018

New management of Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary in Whangarei said the park’s controversial days were behind it. It reopened in December 2021 and went into liquidation in March 2023. (Video first published May 2018)

A troubled big cat park in Northland has been closed to the public for years, with its population of lions and tigers in decline. Harrison Christian goes inside Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary as it gears up for a re-opening, which the park's founder claims he'll fight to stop.

The bad headlines came lightly at first, then thick and fast. Financial trouble; domestic violence; alleged mistreatment of animals. Craig 'the Lion Man' Busch collected dozens of lions and tigers at a facility in Northland before he left the country – and the cats – to start again in South Africa.

Four tigers; two cheetahs; seventeen lions and one black leopard. That's the full inventory remaining at what is now called Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary. Where the park once had almost 40 animals a decade ago, there are now only 24 left.

Nestled in the countryside east of Whangarei and echoing with the roars of the big cats, the park has stood dormant since the government ordered it closed to the public four years ago. There's been talk of a revival ever since, but dates indicated for a re-opening have come and gone.

Meanwhile, various operators kept things running; the cats might be off-limits to the public, but they still have to eat, getting through an average of four cows per week. A new level of activity is stirring behind the fences under Australian couple Janette and Dale Vallance, who plan to have tourists through the gates this summer.

The park has four tigers; two orange and two white.

* Lion man: I'll quit NZ

* Mum's chilling swipe at Lion Man

* Lion Man Craig Busch hits back at allegations

* Lion Man shown on camera capturing baby giraffe**

The Vallances are busy upgrading enclosures to bring them up to Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) standards. Their task is to get the park compliant after years of delays.

This lioness is one of few cats at the park that wasn't de-clawed.

Most of the 11 staff are new and, with rental accommodation scant in Whangarei, live on-site with the Vallances. Janette, whose house sometimes shakes with the force of the roaring, says it's a job you can't clock off from. The staff are there because they love the animals, which have been the ultimate victims in the park's troubled history.

'Our focus,' says Janette, steering her car towards an enclosure with a pair of lionesses, 'Is making it as good a facility as possible in terms of caring for the animals. Making an exhibit out of that is probably secondary to the care.'

The park's lush backdrop is a far cry from parched northern Victoria, where the couple previously kept retired circus cats at a wildlife refuge. They got the call late last year with an offer to work as contractors for park owners, Auckland millionaire Murray Bolton and his partner Joanne.

Janette is confident the park will eventually turn a profit for Bolton, though it might be a 'small blip' on the Blues investor's radar. She says there are no plans to make the park the setting of another TV show.

'The general treatment of the animals would never be like that. That's just not going to happen.'

A TROUBLED HISTORY

A pair of lionesses that live at the park in Northland.

'When I came to Africa, I had the shirt on my back. I started again,' says Craig Busch from South Africa.

'I've now built up a park from nothing, and through hard times, got it where it is today.'

You might remember Busch as the Lion Man, star of the eponymous TV series that shot him to fame in the early 2000s. Filmed at the facility in Northland, then named Zion Wildlife Gardens, it was one of New Zealand's most successful shows.

In the opening credits, African drums and flutes reached a crescendo over a shot of Busch surveying a canyon, dressed in safari gear and a cowboy hat. The narrative was that of a hero conservationist with a near-spiritual connection with his animals.

Then the wheels came off. First, there were the debts, with an Auckland builder alleging Busch owed him $400,000. His mother raised enough money to bail him out and took over the running of the park in 2006. Then Busch was convicted on two counts of assaulting his former partner Karen Greybrook. It emerged he had a previous conviction for assaulting a female in 1991.

He was dismissed from the park in 2008 and in the years that followed, he and his mother Patricia battled in court over its ownership.

Meanwhile, Busch started a new life in Africa.

'I won't be owned by anybody. I won't be anyone's pawn,' he explains. 'It wasn't about the animals; it was about all the film income and the money that the park produced in its heyday.'

By the time Busch left, the park had already been set on a fatal course. In 2009, keeper Dalu Mncube was mauled to death by a 250 kg white tiger. Eight tourists, including two children, saw the mauling. The tiger was shot dead by zoo staff moments after the attack. It was the third attack at the park in just over a year; Mcnube had previously had to prise open the jaws of the same animal from a colleague's mangled leg.

Busch worked on his new park, Jabula Big Cat Sanctuary, in the bushveld outside Johannesburg. There he has nine big cats, as well as giraffes and zebras, and he still uses his Lion Man moniker. The park offers safari tours, close encounters with the animals and an African culture night.

Janette says the animals in Northland were inbred for-profit and illegally de-clawed by Busch. But the Lion Man says he was ousted in a conspiracy to take the park and the cats from him. He says the animals still belong to him and The Busch Wildlife Foundation Trust.

'I actually own them,' Busch says. 'They don't belong to the Boltons whatsoever. They're far from happy these animals. I'm gonna try and stop the park from opening if I can help it.'

Busch says he's not through with the park in Northland. His voice is low and calm as if speaking into the ear of one of his lions.

'I haven't abandoned the animals. I think about them every day and every night. I'll do anything to get those animals back.

'I'm gonna fight them to the day I die on this.'

AUT associate professor Dave Towns says white tigers are 'genetic curiosities'.

NEW BEGINNINGS

Janette shows us Cora and Jabu, two lionesses basking in the sun. Their bellies are full, and they show little interest in the photographer scaling a slope beside their enclosure.

'Not many of the cats still have their claws, but these ones do,' says Janette.

'The cats were de-clawed, I presume so Busch felt safer when he was doing his filming. It's not something that's done now; it's not something we would ever do.'

Twenty-nine cats were de-clawed in total. In a report MPI, then the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), considered laying charges but found most of the procedures were supervised by MAF vets, which was 'problematic to any prosecution'.

Janette says some of the de-clawing wasn't successful, with a couple of lions – Sabi and Sabili – left with mutilated feet. For those cats, it's a question of trying to alleviate their pain without keeping them drugged up.

'When they de-claw, sometimes they take back to the next knuckle, so they end up walking on the back of their foot, which of course adds strain to the tendons in their legs, and leads to all sorts of nasties.'

Busch says of Sabi and Sabili, 'There are no issues with their feet'.

'That was all done over ten years ago. It's history. They've got no right to say anything – they've stolen them.'

We go to see Timba and Themba: white lions, brothers who share the same enclosure. One of them wanders lazily over to us.

'Nearly all the lions here are white,' says Janette, 'And that's what [Busch's] market was, breeding them for sale.'

Given lion prides can wander a territory of more than 250 sq km in the wild, it's hard not to feel for these two as they recline on a lawn surrounded by chain-link fencing.

AUT associate professor Dave Towns, says the ethics of zoos and wildlife parks are complicated. He says some of them play an active role in species conservation or offer a refuge for retired circus animals – while others are more exploitative.

'I have to say that some of them, it's simply an issue of profit,' says Towns. 'They provide a spectacle, and they expect the public to pay to go and see these things.

'And the bigger the spectacle, more likely the more they'll pay. And that I think may have been the motivation of the first iteration of the park.'

Towns says Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary could join an international breeding programme, as Auckland Zoo or Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch, have done.

'These programs are genetically-based, so they're testing the animals to see if they're actually showing signs of inbreeding, and the aim basically is in the long-run to provide populations that if necessary could be released back into the wild.'

Sumatran tigers are propped up by populations in captivity in this way. But simply breeding the animals without being part of a legitimate global program isn't enough. Half of Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary's tigers are white, and so are more than half of its lions. Towns says white tigers and lions are not distinct species from their orange and tawny counterparts, but rather 'genetic curiosities' whose breeding shouldn't be encouraged.

'I don't think in terms of the bigger scheme of things from a conservation perspective they contribute much. We don't have any attempts to try and establish populations of white tigers in the wild, because they simply wouldn't survive.'

Vallance says the park may consider breeding down the track but would need to import more cats to do so as there's 'too much inbreeding here'.

'Once we're open and compliant, that would make it then possible to look at breeding programs, but we would be bringing new blood in.'

Busch dismisses claims the cats are inbred as 'a lot of rubbish'.

'No, they're just lying. They're not inbred at all. Their feet don't hurt, they're not inbred. They don't know what they're talking about; they're not their cats. So, what have they got to say? They've been there for five minutes.'

Janette speaks into her radio: 'Copy, Dale.' Her partner, who is busy welding, radios back giving us clearance to visit the tigers.

Indira, the Bengal tiger, looks up at us from a platform.

'Hello baby,' says Janette.

Whether out of love, torment, or an interest in food, the tigers are communicating with Janette in a low moaning sound. Janette responds in her own language. It's clear that someone needs to care for the tigers, notwithstanding the circumstances that led them to be here in a cage in Northland.

You can tell right away the tiger is on another level from the lions. She's working things out.

'I think tigers plot,' Janette says. 'Lions watch, and they'll plot short-term, whereas I think a tiger plots long-term. 'I've got a plan, and I'm going to catch you that day you do that.''

Vallance says an incident like the fatal mauling of keeper Dalu Mncube in 2009 couldn't happen at the park again, because it's now against the law for keepers to enter cages if the animals are loose inside. The enclosures are ringed with electric fences powered by solar panels, with alarms and backup batteries installed in case the power fails.

'These cats don't know any different, so they're not trying to get out,' she says.

'They know food arrives. They can't get out, and I don't think they want to.'

An MPI spokesperson says the park is still working to meet the requirements of a compliance notice. However, the ministry is satisfied that the aging cat population 'has received robust veterinary oversight'.

'All animals that have been euthanased have been done so humanely by veterinarians and MPI is satisfied that this was justified in each case, based on prognosis and animal welfare,' the spokesperson says.

MPI is in regular contact with the park, receives monthly reports and has visited twice in 2018.