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"Trespassers will be eaten."
It was the first of many grisly greetings for visitors to Bullen's African Lion Safari in the 1970s and 1980s.
More than 30 lions and cubs once roamed the open-range zoo in the outer-Perth suburb of Wanneroo which was established in 1971 as a refuge for displaced circus lions.
Wanneroo Museum historian Susan Dalgleish said the park tried to replicate an authentic African safari experience.
"You could sit in your car and the animals would come to you," she said.
"You'd have them coming right up getting on your bonnet, getting on the roof, and you're right there and you've got a lion or lioness actually right there outside your window.
"Anything that was an appendage on the car was open slather for the lions to take a bite off.
"Windscreen wipers were a favourite thing — they did go for tyres as well."
Taking lions by the tail
Ms Dalgleish said the lions were well cared for by staff and would eat at least two kilograms of meat every day.
"For all intents and purposes, the lions actually had quite a good life, albeit they were there on display but in a bigger area than just being in a circus."
In an oral history interview with the museum, the now-deceased park manager John Gilbertson admitted he had no background in caring for exotic animals before accepting the job.
"The only background I had was a domestic cat and dog at home, but when the lion park was being built I approached [park owners] Stafford and Ken Bullen and I was told to start the next day."
Mr Gilberton said many of the lions were tame.
"If you were working in the night quarters, Ferocious the lion would come and lay down alongside you and that's where he'd stay," he said.
"You had to get him by the tail and drag him out of the way."
Escaped lioness folklore
In the mid 1980s, police investigated reports of a lioness wandering through scrubland near the park.
A teenager claimed he had to stop his car on Wanneroo Road to avoid hitting the animal while it crossed the road.
Park coordinator Greg Bullen told a local newspaper at the time the large barbed-wire fences surrounding the park meant there was no chance of a lion escaping.
"A press release was issued by the park to say 'it's not one of ours, none of our lions have escaped', but that didn't actually solve where the lion came from," Ms Dalgleish said.
"So there's still all of this folklore about the lion that never was or was there ever a sighting?"
Tippi Hedren spells the end of safari
The beginning of the end for the park came in 1981 when American actress Tippi Hedren visited and told local media she was appalled at the conditions in which the lions were kept.
Then in 1982, a man stepped out of his car and walked into the lion compound wearing religious medallions and holding a cross — he was mauled to death by a pack of lions awaiting their mid-morning feed.
"You can't stop people from doing silly things," Mr Gilbertson said in his interview.
The park closed in 1988, with management citing the high cost of animal feed, expensive public liability insurance and opposition from animal rights activists.
"Even though the lions were not being mistreated, the tide was turning for that sort of a thing," Ms Dalgleish said.
The remaining lions were shot and killed. Management said it was too difficult to re-home the animals as they would not integrate with other prides.
It was the first and only time Western Australia had an open-range zoo.
In the lead-up to the 2017 state election, then-premier Colin Barnett pledged to establish an open-range zoo in the Perth hills, but the plans were scrapped after his government was defeated.
Topics: animals, zoos, animal-welfare, tourism, history, people, human-interest, perth-6000
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