The Enchanting Existential Dread of Aussie Theme Parks: Chapter Five - It’s Scary, But Nobody Cares

Bondi Aquarium, courtesy of the Powerhouse Museum.

Jurassic Park warned us about combining all the problems of a theme park with maintaining a major zoo, and Australian theme parks in particular seem to have bad luck with that balancing act. Let’s look at about three of those and find out why mixing animals with carnival rides is a terrible game plan for most of the suburban parks who attempt such a thing. First, let’s look at Bondi Aquarium, one of the earliest Sydney theme parks and a precursor to Luna Park Sydney. I had no idea this place once existed, save for a mural painted on the wall at Bondi which I saw as a kid, dunno if it’s still there. I want to attribute my sources I used for this section, there’s the Waverley Council Fact Sheet, and Bondi Banter. I found the alleged Airem Scarem picture on Pinterest but I cannot confirm if this is an actual picture of the ride so I left it there as a speculative image of what it might have looked like. But I could be wrong. I used Powerhouse Museum as a source in a previous version of this piece but they lost the rights to the opening photograph and their detailed list of Bondi Aquarium attractions is gone. So I’m rebooting this review with updated information to give a greater amount of context and history to the Bondi Aquarium and the Wonderland City amusement park that spawned from it. For starters, I want to point out that Australian circus and carnival performers hate being called “carnies”, to the extent that Norma Brophy titled her memoir about circus life Don’t Call Us Carnies: We Are Showies And Damn Proud Of It. So I’m not gonna call any of these vaudeville performers and clowns “carnies”. This will come back into play when we have to address the circus workers involved in the other animal attraction based parks. The Don’t Call Us Carnies book starts with a description of a drunken boxing bout that reminds me of the fight in Hayao Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso, it’s a good read. But back to Bondi Aquarium. It started off with profound success, with a variety of non-animal attractions to go along with the Aquarium aspect of the park’s many tourist trap gimmicks:

Sydney’s first coastal amusement park, The Royal Aquarium and Pleasure Grounds was nestled into Fletcher’s Glen at Tamarama Beach. An extension to the existing tramway to service the amusement park was built in August 1887. Popularly known as the Bondi Aquarium, it opened on October 1, 1887. The opening day saw a grand military band, merry-go-rounds, swings, a shooting gallery, water boats, Camera Obscura, Punch and Judy shows and dancing in the grand hall.

Crowds flocked to the park, not just for the rides and vaudeville acts, but for the aquarium creatures as well. Marine life swimming in the tanks included catfish, bream, whiting, mullet, lobsters, stingrays, porcupine fish, turtles, a wobbegong shark and a tiger shark. The most interesting and entertaining of the inhabitants were the seals, who shared the pond with a solitary penguin.

- Waverley Library, 2022

Considering that the local government was capable of servicing Bondi Aquarium with regular public transport, it’s easy to forget how big of a draw it was. Luna Park Sydney didn’t exist yet, and the humble origins of Bondi Aquarium didn’t stop expansion of the amusement park elements to keep expanding. Waverley Library also reveals there were a bunch of more ambitious park attractions funnelling tourists to the area:

Another popular attraction was the Switchback Railway, an exciting, diving, plunging rollercoaster ride above the sands of Tamarama Beach. Two roller skating rinks were “illuminated by the electric light”. Pain’s Grand Fireworks exploded every Wednesday, and there were Sacred and Classical Concerts each Sunday.

Feats of skill and daring were a special drawcard and included dangerous mounted sword contests, tightrope walkers, and parachuting. Alexander, touted as the Australian Blondin (a famed French funambulist) walked a wire from cliff to cliff. Captain George Drevar floated on a ‘cask raft’ through the pounding surf, and a “Grand Balloon Ascent and Parachute Descent” rounded out the show. Headliners from the Tivoli Theatre also performed on the Aquarium circuit.

- Waverley Library, 2022

At the time that Bondi Aquarium was at its peak, the crossover between theme parks and showies had never been stronger. It wasn’t unusual for showies from various disciplines to be hand picked to perform at Bondi Aquarium and tourist traps like it. I’m going to quote from Norma Brophy recounting her earliest memories in 1936 to give you an idea of how the showie economy functioned outside of permanent fixtures like the Bondi Aquarium, because even if it’s not about the Bondi Aquarium it applies to how this ecosystem functioned before and after it closed:

For the general public, ‘the Show’ was always a rare and special event. But for us showies, it felt like it was every day. We breathed and moved as a group. I grew up feeling connected with everybody around me in our community. We all felt that. It was something the locals might have found hard to understand. We showies had a true sense of belonging, by banding together. Some of the travelling show people were from circus families, others from vaudeville entertainment and some from the carnivals, rodeos and agricultural shows. Most of the circuses had carnivals on the outside of the huge marquees, which operated before and during interval. Some even travelled the rodeo circuit. All the businesses and families overlapped like a giant puzzle. Every man, woman and child was prepared to work long hours in all kinds of weather so that the show could go on. It wasn’t just a cliche. The show people were, and still are, survivors. There was no room for complainers or hypochondriacs in the outdoor entertainment industry. If you were ill you went to hospital, got treated and went back to work.

- Don’t Call Us Carnies, Norma Brophy with Wendy Stuart, Affirm Press, 2022.

The Bondi Aquarium met an unfortunate end, one that was unexpected by the management:

On the evening of July 11th, 1891, fire destroyed the aquarium and pavillion. but it was rebuilt within months. Rising from the ashes in September 1891, the park continued to entertain Sydney’s populace. The last official concert held at the Aquarium was a fund raiser for the Waverley Benevolent Society in July 1906.

Ownership and management of the park changed several times throughout its history, until the site was finally sold by Mrs. Margaret J Lachaume in 1906 to William Anderson. Anderson went on to transform the amusement park, renaming it Wonderland City.

- Waverley Library, 2022.

New management has almost killed as many Australian theme parks as suburban sprawl and real estate speculation has, chances are if a rich guy with no taste buys your theme park it’s not long for this world, as we saw with Sunway’s acquisition of Wonderland Sydney. If your theme park is adjacent to a popular tourist spot like a beach, that’ll cause a bunch of problems too, which Wonderland City did. There’s only so much carnival ride bullshit local residents will put up with, especially if the ridiculous theme park rides block people’s access to a perfectly good beach that was fine before William Anderson put obnoxious attractions like the Airem Scarem into the mix. What kind of steampunk monstrosity is this thing? It looks like it belongs in a Final Fantasy game, not a summer destination for swimmers who are trying to avoid riptides as it is without this thing endangering everyone in its path. Wonderland City had a lot of things its predecessor had, the showies performing daredevil stunts as they did before, except now people were asking questions:

The conflict with local swimmers and the wire fence incident soured the public image of Wonderland, as did complaints that the animals were being poorly housed and mistreated. The occasional breakdown of the Airem Scarem airship above the dangerous surf caused accusations of safety breaches and resident opposition to the weekend revellers at Wonderland grew. The crowd numbers dropped but Williams Anderson fought back bringing in famous entertainers and more daring acts from his national touring circuit to perform at the King’s Theatre. Anderson responded with more elaborate public exhibitions, but the public was tiring of Wonderland and the crowds dropped. It struggled on from March 1908 to December 1910 with poor crowds and low revenue, finally closing in 1911. William Anderson is said to have lost £15,000 on Wonderland City.

- Lost Sydney: Wonderland City, published online by https://www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/lost-theme-wondercity.html

Let me make myself clear, the showies survived the demise of Wonderland City and went back to their usual Royal Easter Show and rodeo jobs, after this ill-advised theme park built in a place that was even more doomed than the Bondi Aquarium before it. William Anderson’s mismanagement is documented in far more detail than Bondi Aquarium’s shortcomings, which either means no-one lived long enough to blow the whistle on Bondi Aquarium or that William Anderson was so incompetent at running a successful theme park which had been sold to him that history paints him in an unflattering light. Circus people are gonna get a reckoning when I have to deal with the two major lion parks in this piece, but even by their messed up standards I think William Anderson is not the greatest business mogul involved in the tapestry that is defunct Aussie theme parks. I can’t find many sources online that indicate this man did much for Bondi Aquarium except ruin what he inherited from far more talented builders when he bought it. The uncomfortable animal cruelty allegations don’t surprise me, the early nineteen hundreds killed Topsy the elephant with electricity, so I’m guessing Australian endangered animal conservation wasn’t a top priority. The end of Wonderland City marked the beginning of a new era for both showies and theme parks, one where beaches were soon allowed to be actual beaches and not the dumping ground for a ton of Coney Island inspired carnival paraphernalia. As far as I can tell, no visitors died at Bondi Aquarium or Wonderland City, which is more than what I can say for the two circus lion parks.

Alleged picture of the Airem Scareum attraction at Wonderland City. (Source: Pinterest)

African Lion Safari is perhaps the most infamous of the Aussie suburban theme parks because of its reputation for escaped animals and human casualties it accumulated over the years, it was started by a circus ringmaster named Stafford Bullen who needed a home base for his menagerie at Warragamba Dam. and Bullen’s Animal World served that necessity for him for the period in which African Lion Safari was operating. Most of the information I got from this article about Stafford Bullen’s life and business enterprises came from an obituary for Stafford Bullen written by Jenny Tabakoff in 2001, as well as various articles and podcasts sourced from Australia’s public broadcaster ABC. Without these sources to rely on, this article couldn’t have been written. Bullen came from the circus world, and with that mindset came a certain approach to his animal attractions which doesn’t meet the standards of an Australia Zoo or Dreamworld’s Tiger Island. I know we’re all thinking it, but Stafford Bullen is more of a pulp adventure hero than a proto-Joe Exotic, and his contributions to nature preservation through his breeding program should be noted even if he made a few mistakes breaching government regulations along the way. In the perspective of circus worker history, he belongs in the middle between P.T. Barnum and WWE owner Vince McMahon, neither a racist monster who wanted to exhibit Aboriginal people like P.T. Barnum nor the sophisticated and slick corporate sports entertainment CEO that McMahon is today. I’m willing to guess Vince McMahon can’t juggle or do trapeze acts, and Stafford Bullen’s obituary paints him is a far more compassionate light than Vince is gonna get from wrestling’s superstars when he finally carks. Bullen was beloved by his crew and earned that. I know nobody trusts circus ringmasters in 2023, after we all saw Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio on Netflix, even Osamu Tezuka gave circus ringmasters a hard time in Astro Boy’s manga and anime adaptations. The Greatest Showman might’ve tried to rehabilitate P.T. Barnum as a progressive version of his freak show touting persona, but most of us weren’t buying that version of Barnum for a second. For all the human flaws Stafford Bullen had as a product of his controversial industry, I’m not here to rubbish the guy as an antagonist in his own story. He made questionable choices, because he was a human being raised in the environment that produced him. Jenny Tabakoff introduces him thus:

“Some small boys run away from home to join a circus. I was born into it and see no other way of life.” So said Stafford Bullen, who has died in Sydney aged 76.

Stafford Leslie Bullen was born in Bathurst, where the circus his parents founded happened to be performing. As a nine-year-old, Stafford’s father, Arthur Percival Bullen, had declared his intention to establish the greatest circus in Australia. In 1920, he founded Bullen’s Circus with his wife, Lilian.

Bullen’s Circus vied with Wirth’s, Perry’s, Sole Brothers and Ashton’s. Its 16 wagons criss-crossed Australia, with Stafford, his three younger brothers and sisters in the entourage. He described his childhood as “marvellous and exciting”. His circus career began at four: soon he was working as a contortionist, tumbler, clown, wire-walker, bare-back rider, juggler, trainer of horses and elephants, and eventually ringmaster.

“As a small child, I was filled with the wonder of it - the animals who became my friends, the big-hearted performers, the hard work.” he said. “There was a lot of laughter and comradeship you would never find in any other profession.”

- Jenny Tabakoff, “Stafford Bullen”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12th January 2001.

One story from the obituary about Stafford Bullen involves him surviving a train crashing into his truck and having his trusty elephant Gandhi pulling him free from the wreckage, that’s classic Indiana Jones-tier badassery, right? I like that his dad wanted to establish the greatest circus in Australia, which is a goal no amount of tall poppy syndrome could suppress. It’s kind of a low bar to set your sights on “best in Australia” when it comes to circuses, when Europe and Asia are doing such impressive work at the same time Bullen’s Circus was going strong. Stafford Bullen seems so awesome, like an Australian folklore hero Banjo Paterson would write poems about. I’m going to have to cover his business dealings next, which is an interesting part of his circus legacy:

Stafford and Ken Bullen ran the business after their mother died in 1965. Lilian Bullen, a remarkable character, had run the circus since retiring from the ring. In later life, she developed a habit of hoarding cash on Bullen properties. In 1959, schoolboys found a £40,000 hoard in Five Dock: her estate successfully fought for its return. In 1971, another cache was found in Yeppoon.

In the early 1960s, conscious of the threat television posed, the business began to diversify. In 1965, Bullen helped the Edgley organisation to bring the Great Moscow Circus to Australia, and later shows like Disney on Parade, The Greatest Show on Earth, the Monte Carlo Circus and the Moscow Circus on Ice. In 1968, the African Lion Safari opened at Warragamba. (The marketing for the park opening included the release of a promotional single of the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight, produced by Pat Aulton and performed by an anonymous studio group called The Love Machine, which was actually Sydney band Tymepiece.) With its drive-through exotic animal area and miniature safari railway, it attracted up to 200,000 visitors a year.

In 1969, the travelling circus closed and Bullen’s Animal World, with a permanent circus, opened at Wallacia. Within three years, Bullen was chairman and manager of six animal parks in Australia and another in Auckland. By 1977 Bullen, who was breeding animals for export, estimated he had 360 lions.

- Jenny Tabakoff, “Stafford Bullen”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12th January 2001.

So begins the journey of one of Australia’s longest running animal parks, you can almost hear “Push It To The Limit” from the Scarface soundtrack, can’t you? It’s hard to look at African Lion Safari with fresh eyes, the advertisements bombarded you with so many different activities than just having lions and tigers climb onto your family sedan, there were dolphins and seals as well as cockatoos to marvel at (thanks to Bullen's circus origins his parks were well stocked with a vast menagerie of creatures), and the playground equipment would’ve been fun for rural kids to clamber about on. The outrageous, unregulated fun continued as the decades went on. The TV adverts sang “It’s scary, but nobody cares!”, however somebody should’ve cared because people died. It wasn’t just a one-trick pony of a park, it was an experience at Warragamba Dam which was well stocked with the kinds of attractions you’d expect from The Big Pineapple up in Queensland, complete with a train for tourists to hop onto across the property. Lest we forget that African Lion Safari stayed open until the late eighties to early nineties, it was a success in its day which outlived other parks of its ilk like Bacchus Marsh Lion Park in Victoria. There was a lot to see and do here for a small range amusement park slash zoo, and its affordable entertainment must’ve been quite an event for kiddies who would’ve delighted at the chance to get up close to those great cats. Out of all the suburban theme parks, this one seems to be one of Australia’s least lame, the one which delivered on what the adverts promised (unlike Wobbie’s World).

Apparently the park’s tenure was not without its accidents, I’m going to have to trust the radio station Triple M as a source on this one, which is difficult for me since they inflicted NIckelback and Creed onto the Australian masses during the 2000s. Triple M said this about African Lion Safari:

Many workers admitted they had been bitten by hyenas and clawed at by tigers. In 1973, an attendant was dragged off by lions and killed in front of a family sitting in their car.

In 1982, a male guest got out of his car and walked right into a pride of lions. It was ruled as suicide.

- Triple M, The eventful history of Bullen’s African Lion Safari Park in Yatala, 16th July 2018

Bullen’s business ventures came into sharper focus the more I investigated, with this tidbit from Stafford Bullen’s obituary going in a surprising direction regarding where his money was going. In between maintaining the stronghold of opulence and tiger cubs he had, Stafford Bullen attempted to buy not one, but two of Australia’s most popular television stations. Keep in mind, this was before Rupert Murdoch’s son got outbid by CBS for Channel 10. The alternate universe where the Murdoch empire might’ve been scrapping with the Bullens over who gets to own one of the major TV broadcasters in the country would’ve been fascinating. But alas, it all comes back to the animal parks. And oh boy, do the animal parks become a liability in several ways.

Bullen became bigger than circuses: apart from the animal parks, he bred lions and tigers for circuses and zoos. Other business interests included property development, the travel and entertainment industries, British casinos and attempts to buy into Channel 9 in Brisbane and Channel 10 in Sydney. He said he “found the discipline of circus training invaluable in business”. In 1985, he based himself on the Isle of Man, travelling Europe with his son Craig to stock a zoo in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

By then, the animal park business was becoming less attractive. As Sydney sprawled, Bullen complained about stringent regulations on keeping exotic animals. The difficulties of the increasingly suburban setting became apparent when an escaped lioness mauled a family’s dog. In addition, animal liberationists made Bullen a target. He staunchly defended his record and the importance of his breeding program (although he was, by his own admission, convicted of cruelty to a monkey whose chain had become embedded in the flesh of the neck).

- Jenny Tabakoff, “Stafford Bullen”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12th January 2001.

We’ve reached the “raptors in the kitchen” moment for African Lion Safari, the incident which is the most sandblasted onto people’s minds when the park is mentioned. It’s time to talk about the lion escape which didn’t kill anybody save a civilian’s dog. The park closed in 1991, and by 1995 the animals were still kept on property even if you could no longer drive amongst the big cats.

A few weeks before the lioness escaped, Adam—not his real name—had been at the local bike jumps, playing with a friend.

They ran alongside a tall fence at the border of the old lion park. Adam and his young mate were primary schoolers at the time.

Local kids had seen non-threatening buffalo at the park's fence-line as a regular event.

"You could poke them with a stick," Adam recalled.

They were also accustomed to hearing lions being fed in distant cages as they sat down to their own family dinners. It was all part of living next to the old park.

Adam remembered it as being "cool".

- Timothy Nicastri, for The Real Thing, ABC RN, “How a boy’s adventure helped a lion escape from a defunct safari park in Warragamba”, 20th September 2016.

The boys entered through a stormwater pipe and kicked in the grate to enter the defunct lion park’s property with the intention to go yabbie fishing, and they had no idea that this exercise in Ian Malcolm chaos theory would release a lioness into the local community. They felt no guilt over their role in the escape being so young at the time, but this incident conflicted with Stafford Bullen’s claim would have to break through two fences to get out. Young boys could get away with adventures in trespassing back in the mid-nineties, but the demands of exotic animal care were much harsher in penalty to Stafford Bullen, whose responsibility for his lions weighed on his shoulders.

Late one night in August 1995, Ian Berry and Detective Sergeant Fran Ralph received a call to attend a "lion wandering the streets", the pair had an initial reaction of disbelief.

"I got the radio call, and I said: 'Is there a pink elephant with it?'" Mr Berry said.

They arrived at Marsh Road in Silverdale, convinced they had been called out for no reason.

"Then of course, this lion just slowly walked out in front of our police car. To be honest, I almost had a heart attack," Detective Sergeant Ralph remembered.

Mr Berry called for assistance: "Radio, can you get Brenton Bullen here ASAP."

- Timothy Nicastri, for The Real Thing, ABC RN, “How a boy’s adventure helped a lion escape from a defunct safari park in Warragamba”, 20th September 2016.

It could be argued that incidents like this one that ringmaster Bullen was involved in had caused wider restrictions on exotic animal ownership for everyone else in the circus industry. It would not be the only animal escape Stafford Bullen had been liable for either, as an escaped bear is mentioned in the court documents of“Legislative Questions and Answers, #34”, parliament.gov.nsw.au. Parliament of New South Wales, 5th May 1998. Keep in mind, this bear escape happened close to the Port Arthur mass gun buyback scheme, so the rural residents who shot the bear were lucky they kept hold of their loaded weapons or else this could’ve gotten real ugly - or at least uglier than it ended up being. The legislative council proceedings from 1998 grills Stafford Bullen about details like the Non-Indigenous Animals Act 1987, where Bullen was facing very serious charges of negligence in the escape of these creatures if he violated these laws. But in the end it was decided the problem was that he didn’t sign paperwork to move the bears he’d been holding in captivity, which were later sold. In “Legislative Questions and Answers. #34”, you can read about government preparations for Y2K of all things amongst the stuff being discussed, which indicated a shift in how much of an antiquated relic Stafford Bullen seemed when the same council interrogating him were moving onto tackling technological problems which would impact computer users on a mass scale. Stafford Bullen died a smidge into the twenty-first century, and in a way that’s fitting for a guy who had been ringmaster of a family owned circus for so long. The contemporary environment didn’t respond well to how he was managing his animals, and while other circuses like the Stardust Circus that I saw in Coffs Harbour when I was a kid (round about 1997 if I can recall), by the new millennium the animal welfare brigade stained these institutions’' reputations beyond repair. Showies kept on being showies, but the circus wouldn’t be the same.

A car amongst the lions at African Lion Safari.

A snapshot from African Lion Safari, stating “Trespassers Will Be EATEN”.

A parrot pushing a lever at African Lion Safari in its advertisement.

A dolphin being fed its meal at African Lion Safari.

A tiger roaming the road at African Lion Safari, from the advert.

Lions walking on the pathway at African Lion Safari in the advert.

Playground equipment featured at African Lion Safari in adverts.

Water feature at African Lion Safari, excerpted from the advert.

Aerial shot from the African Lion Safari ad with dolphinarium visible.

Blurry shot of a bear at African Lion Safari from the advert.

More playground equipment at African Lion Safari, from the advert.

Monkey bars at the African Lion Safari park, from the advert.

A dolphin jumping at the aquatic animal show at African Lion Safari.

Slippery dip at African Lion Safari, from the advert.

Seals balancing a ball at the African Lion Safari aquatic animal show

Cockatoo riding a scooter at African Lion Safari, from the advert.

The African Lion Safari train line, featured with pride in the adverts.

“Take a helicopter joy-ride!” - only available on Sundays and public holidays.

Picnic area with self serve cafe and restaurants, at African Lion Safari.

The final shot of the African Lion Safari advert. Footage courtesy of GrubcoTV3.

The pipe through which the pregnant lioness escaped.

Bacchus Marsh Lion Park isn’t as famous as African Lion Safari, but it was operated by Stafford Bullen’s main rival, Ashton’s Circus. My father’s first experience with the circus came from Ashton’s, he recalls there was a man with a gun to take control in case the lions escaped. Until recently I found it difficult to obtain information about Bacchus Marsh, however the popularity of Netflix’s blockbuster Tiger King documentary has led to zookeepers who worked at the Bacchus Marsh Lion Park which operated in Western Victoria. Ron Prendergast’s son Darcy has been working on a documentary about the lion park called Strange Beasts which got funding from Screen Australia. It was similar to the African Lion Safari at Warragamba Dam, in that it also had a drive-in tourist trap where you could steer your vehicle amongst the animals, and various incidents forced the park to have higher restrictions which caused it to close down. Prendergast is a fascinating figure, he was inspired by a television show called Cowboy from Africa to work with animals, however if you’re aware of the shortcomings of Bullen’s Animal World you can guess the Bacchus Lion and Tiger Safari had similar problems. You could still drive around big cats in your car, and it was just as unregulated. According to the ABC, two significant deaths happened at Bacchus Lion and Tiger Safari, as reported by OnlyMelbourne.com: It was surprising that I had to resort to tourism website lore to confirm this:

A 12 year old boy was mauled by a lion at the park in 1978 and an 18 year old in 1979. Also in 1979, a tiger smashed through a partly opened window and pulled a woman from the car, killing her.

- OnlyMelbourne.com, Bacchus Marsh Lion Safari

How did this happen? Was anyone paying attention? Some people involved on staff grew concerned. Doug Ashton, who inherited the Ashton’s Circus family business, died at age 92, and his involvement in Bacchus Marsh Lion and Tiger Safari can be summed up by this paragraph in his obituary in The West Australian:

As the circus master, Mr. Ashton’s family said he had a policy of never turning down anyone who wanted a job, even during the Great Depression.

The pay packet was slim and the work hard, so even the hungriest, often didn’t last long as a roustabout. But he would never deny those with a gift for it, a chance to live the life he loved.

At the circus’ peak, about 80 people worked on Mr. Ashton’s payroll, including 38 family members.

In the 70s, he opened up and ran a series of exotic animal safari parks in QLD, NSW and VIC.

- Joseph Catanzaro, “Ashton Circus patriarch dies”, The West Australian, 3 November 2011.

Oh. I see how it is now. Much like Bullen’s Animal World, Bacchus Lion and Tiger Safari was just one of many animal parks he owned. The amount of family members on the payroll sounds like they were the circus equivalent of the Kardashian dynasty. This headcount is putting the Mormons to shame, the grandkid round up from Encanto has less characters. Is it possible that Doug Ashton’s inability to turn down someone for a job led to him hiring inexperienced rookies? Perhaps I’ll quote Ron Prendergast on the matter and let you decide:

“Nobody they employed had animal skills, unless they had come out of the circus.

“Here we’ve got people working with large, dangerous animals that haven’t got any skill, they’re just learning on the ground.”

- Ron Prendergast, interviewed by Evan Morgan Grahame for ABC Ballarat, Saturday 20th June, 2020.

Circuses since the late nineties have tried to go animal-free, following the example of Circus Oz and other contemporary circuses like Gravity and Other Myths have shaken the stigma of the archaic way of doing things. I witnessed the Stardust Circus in Coffs Harbour in the late nineties which had lions and tigers jumping through hoops, which is wonderful when you’re a kid but borderline illegal when you’re an adult. Both African Lion Safari and Bacchus Lion and Tiger Park were emblematic of that same kind of mindset, they seem a bit surreal in hindsight and a bit suss when examined closer with the scrutiny of our red-tape covered epoch. They were irresponsible relics of the big top’s showie roots which couldn’t adapt to the changing environment for both circuses and suburban theme parks, yet it is a bit sad that their laissez-faire attitude to residential zoning permits means its kind of afternoon family entertainment is gone for good.

The wilder side of nature deserves to stay wild, and as Coyote Peterson once said, it’s best to appreciate the dangerous parts of nature from a safe distance.

Photographer captured at the top of his jeep hiding from a curious lion.

Ron Prendergast among his collection of animal specimens.

Ron Prendergast cozying up to a tiger at Bacchus Marsh.

Ron Pendergast at age 17, caring for jungle creatures.

One of the Bacchus Marsh tigers feeding on their meal.