An animal handler has been hospitalised after being mauled by a tiger at an Australian zoo.
The woman was injured while working with the animal before opening hours on Monday at Dreamworld, a large theme park with a zoo on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
She suffered ‘multiple lacerations to the arm’ and was taken to hospital, where she is still recovering.
‘She was quite pale and feeling unwell, but in general well and was able to be transported,’ a local ambulance chief told ABC News.
The handler, who is in her 40s, was described as an ‘experienced and senior’ member of the team.
Dreamworld, which welcomes some 2 million guests, offers one of only two above-board interactive tiger exhibits in the world.
The Tiger Island attraction is home to nine Sumatran and Bengali tigers who take part in ‘immersive and intimate experiences’.
Guests are offered the chance to ‘get mere centimetres from our tigers’ in ‘viewing areas where you can get so close you could feel the breath of a tiger’.
They can also feed one of the tigers as part of the interactions, which take place under supervision and keep the animals fenced off from people the whole time.
There have been a number of previous injuries to animal handlers at Tiger Island, which opened three decades ago.
A senior member of the team was injured in an incident in 2022, according to local media reports.
In 2016, a handler suffered cuts and scratches to his wrist and forehead after a tiger got ‘hot and bothered’.
In 2013, another handler was bitten by an ‘over-excited’ tiger and suffered a crushed carotid artery, nicked jugular, paralysis to the left larynx and nerve damage to the left eye.
A spokesperson for the theme park said managers were focused on supporting the employee who was injured on Monday.
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