Lion man's dad backs son's skills

Craig Busch's father says Dalu Mncube would never have been killed if his son was still in control of Zion Wildlife Gardens.

"Health and safety, it wasn't adhered to," Kevin Busch said. "If Craig was there, this accident wouldn't have happened. It would have been two lives saved, including the tiger that should never have been shot. All I can stress is that Craig takes back the park immediately to save the lives of the animals."

He told how Zion, one of the park's lions, acted as a father to television's Lion Man and if any of the other animals played up would put a paw on his shoulder to scare them away.

"Craig is their dad ... He's got a special gift, he's one of the very few, rare people in the world that's got the knowledge of animals of this kind."

Mr Busch, who lives in Thames, said Mr Mncube was "a good guy" who his son had "trained up well".

The Department of Labour and the police are investigating the incident, but neither would be drawn on the fate of the park's 42 felines. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said the ministry was unable to confirm publicly if it was investigating the incident. Department of Labour spokesman Eric Janse van Rensburg said it might take up to six months for its two inspectors to decide whether the park breached the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

Animal behaviorist Mark Vette, who trains animals for film and television, and had worked with Abu, the white tiger believed to have attacked Mr Mncube, feared for the fate of the highly endangered animals.

"There'd be an international uproar if we were to put those cats down and I know that's a possibility. The onus is on us as citizens of New Zealand to make sure that we deal with that in an appropriate fashion and make sure that we don't cause the demise of what is already a very minimal gene pool."

He said because Mr Mncube was cleaning the cage rather than training, he might not have had the correct tools to defend himself from an attack.

"Everything can be peaceful and nice one minute and not the next. Something must have been different to have set him off and cause the incident ... It's very hard to say what may have provoked the situation."