Roar! Ow!
That’s the onomatopoeia version of what happened last Saturday at a zoo near East Tawas, Michigan.
Renae Ferguson and her daughter Tina Dobson were visiting the zoo called Sunrise Side Nature Trail and Exotic Park when the Michigan mother decided she wanted to pet one of the “beautiful” lions.
That turned out to be a BIG mistake and it ended up costing the lady part of her finger!
Now she says she’s going to seek legal action against the zoo because one of their workers actually let her in the cage to touch the king of the jungle. Here’s what she said happened next:
“I put my hand down there to pet it and it ripped my finger. I was in total shock. I really didn’t believe that was part of my finger laying on the ground.”
And the worst part for Renae Ferguson was how the zoo workers reacted! She claims they could care less about her mauling and were instead worried about their own unscratched butts! She even says they wanted her to cover up what happened!
She said:
“They just told me not to tell. They told me to lie.”
Renae Ferguson’s daughter Tina corroborates her mother’s story and also hopes the zoo will tighten up their precaution policy. She said:
“I would like like to see more precautions taken to protect the people as well as the animals.”
However officials at the zoo aren’t agreeing with Renae Ferguson’s version of events. In fact they claim she basically snuck into a restricted area close to the lion’s cage, and – without permission – stuck her finger inside the lion’s cage!
The zoo owners said in an email:
“The lady went into the security area and was told by the guide to get back and the lady stated she wanted to touch the lion and continued, against the guide’s warning, to put her finger inside the fence and the lion nipped the end of her finger.”
Sounds like both parties are pretty peeved at each other, but essentially we think both of them are at fault here!
No one should stick their fingers near a lion OR try and pet such a dangerous caged animal. And the fact that this woman was able to get so close to the majestic animal with almost no problems suggests the zoo SHOULD tighten up their precaution system.
However, the only one we’re hoping doesn’t catch any flak from this is the lion.
The lion is blameless in our opinion! It was just following its nature!
We guess the lesson we can all learn from this is that lions can be highly dangerous, and fingers belong nowhere near them!
Check out a video with more information on this story (below) !!!
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