GAY Guysers-Gazette-Issue-16

Lions on the loose running freely
amongst the public on Rotorua’s
Village Green, January 30, 1986.
Continued...
she had been alive right up to the point the
lions got to her.
Speculation at the time was that someone had
put Lucy the poodle into the lions cage and
the lions had mauled her to death. The lions,
hyper after the kill, went straight into the circus
performance. This was the beginning of a
Police with under-powered
rifles are called.
cascade of events that led to the lions escaping
the circus tent for several hours.
One lion was almost immediately recaptured
but the remaining three spilled out into the
crowded Rotorua lakefront.
Kent and his brother sprinted the whole way
home without looking back.
“I kept waiting for lions to jump out from
behind every parked car. It was a terrifying
thing, something I'll never forget.”
Police sergeant Donaldson was called to
respond to the escaped lions from Whirling
Brothers circus and to protect dozens of people
at risk of being mauled (or worse) on the city’s
lakefront.
“There were about 20 police and the circus
workers involved running around chasing the
lions. There’s nothing in the police handbook
for it. And you know, they only had rifles that
were 22s - better suited for shooting rabbits.“
One of the lions ran over to the old hospital
building and climbed under the foundations of
the building through an open trap door.
Trapeze artist and wife of Tony Ratcliffe, the
24 Guysers Gazette
Issue 16 • 2019