An experienced animal handler has been hospitalised after being mauled by a tiger at a theme park in Australia.
The trained handler in her 40s was left with deep cuts to her arm when Emergency Services were called to Dreamworld theme park near Gold Coast in Queensland on Monday.
Staff at the park, which has rides as well as animal exhibits, had managed the bleeding as an ambulance was called to the park at 9am, an hour before opening time.
The woman who had been working with the tiger was transported to Gold Coast University Hospital and is in stable condition following the attack, according to Queensland Ambulance Service director Justin Payne.
Recounting the incident, he said: "We were advised that at the location a 47-year-old female, an experienced handler, had been bitten by one of the tigers.
“The patient obviously had received some serious lacerations and puncture wounds from the animal. She was quite pale and feeling unwell, but generally well.”
Dreamworld described the attack in a statement as “isolated and rare” and assured it would be investigated.
The popular theme park - which is visited by almost two million people every year - is home to nine Sumatran and Bengal tigers at its Tiger Island exhibit. The attraction has been open for a few decades and is one of only a handful of interactive tiger exhibits in the world, according to the theme park.
It has been described as the only location in Queensland where visitors aged 13 and older can tong feed a tiger.
The incident this week follows another in the enclosure in 2011, when a then-nine-year-old male Bengal tiger, Kato, bit two handlers according to local media.
