CASANOVA BOSS OF CRUEL ZOO
As he comes under fire for the running of his safari park, it emerges that David Gill’s love life has been as exotic as the animals in his charge
THE statement on the South Lakes Safari Zoo website couldn’t be more inspiring. “It’s about the animals,” it claims. “Over 1,000 of the rarest, most endangered animals in unique natural environments, which enable the visitor to get as close as physically possible to experience the sights, sounds, and a few smells, of these amazing creatures we share our planet with.”
The 50-acre site in the heart of the beautiful Lake District is, it says: “A natural park with free roaming animals, where over 300,000 annual visitors wander among kangaroos, wallabies, emus; are amazed as free-flying macaws soar overhead; walk in, and interact, with free-roaming lemurs, squirrel monkeys, cotton-topped tamarins; bravely venture where condors and vultures fly free; watch big cats including tigers, lions, jaguars hunt for their lunch; hand feed giraffes, penguins, camels every day.”
If it sounds wonderful, the sorry truth is that for hundreds of animals, the reality of life at the zoo has been far less glorious. In the past four years alone almost 500 of the “amazing creatures” at South Lakes have died – some in horrific circumstances. And serious questions continue to be asked over the treatment of those that remain.
A spokeswoman for the Captive Animals’ Protection Society, which has made its own inspection visits to South Lakes, said: “The conduct of this zoo has been some of the worst we have seen in many years and feel that a cause for closure is strong. We have urged the council to take the opportunity to prevent more animals suffering at this zoo.”
Presiding over it all is a man whose personal life is every bit as colourful as the most exotic animals in his charge. Although now leased to Cumbria Zoo Company, the attraction is still owned by David Gill, 55. He lives close to the site in a luxurious home near the pretty village of Ulverston. His own grounds are just five acres smaller than the zoo itself.
Mr Gill has been the subject of strong criticism following a report by Barrow local authority showing that between December 2013 and September last year, 486 animals have died at South Lakes. Recent inspections have also revealed poor veterinary care, uncontrolled breeding and overcrowding.
It is just the latest controversy to have hit the zoo. Only three years after South Lakes opened in 1994, Gill embarked on an affair with teenage zoo worker Shelley Goodwin, who had left school to work for him looking after the kangaroos. The affair cost him his marriage: wife Alison left him, taking their two children. The same year a three-ton white rhino escaped from its pen and rampaged across the park. The situation was only contained when Gill shot the rhino dead. He was subsequently fined £10,000 for failing to keep the animal properly enclosed.
ALTHOUGH Gill went on to marry Goodwin in 2000, the relationship didn’t last – and in 2001 he was ordered to pay £30,000 to employee Lara Kitson, 23, after she won a case of sexual discrimination and constructive dismissal at a tribunal in Carlisle. Gill had reportedly ordered the pregnant zookeeper to clamber up a 16ft ladder to feed raw meat to the tigers. When she complained that it might put her baby at risk, she claimed that Gill suggested she have an abortion.
In 2006 the zoo came under fire by inspectors again following the escape of its lemurs, with Barrow Borough Council licensing committee ordering Gill to review the design of the enclosures and perimeter fence at the park. The following year, however, the plight of the animals took a back seat once more as Gill’s personal life again grabbed the headlines. Following another shortlived relationship – from which he had two more children – he had begun an affair with married Alison Creary. When her husband, former rugby league player Richard Creary, found out, he stormed into Gill’s home, surprising the couple in bed. Brandishing a knife, he held it to Gill’s throat shouting: “You’re s **** ing my wife – you’re going to die!”
After a struggle, Gill managed to escape – still in his pyjama bottoms – and ran a mile to the nearest house to call the police. “He stuck a knife in my neck,” Gill said at the time. “There was blood spurting all over the floor. I later found the knife narrowly missed two arteries – it’s a miracle I’m still alive.”
Creary admitted the charge of aggravated burglary with intent to cause actual bodily harm and was jailed for five years.
Since then Gill has married for a third time – to Frieda RiveraSchreiber, a model and daughter of a former Miss Peru. But despite his new wife also being a qualified vet, the problems for the animals at South Lakes have only got worse.
In 2008, 31 of the zoo’s lemurs died in a fire. The animals had been enclosed in wooden huts because of cold weather when a faulty electrical heater started the blaze, wiping out a quarter of the zoo’s lemur population.
Worse was to come: in 2013 24-year-old zoo keeper Sarah McClay was mauled to death by a Sumatran tiger during public feeding time. The inquest into her death heard how the tiger had walked through an open door into a corridor where Ms McClay was working before dragging her by the neck into its den. The zoo pleaded guilty to breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £255,000. Gill was acquitted of negligence.
But now the latest report into South Lakes makes for further grim reading. Among the 486 animal deaths mentioned were a decomposing squirrel monkey found behind a radiator, a jaguar that had to be put down after chewing off its own paw, the bodies of snow leopards Miska and Natasja discovered partially eaten in their enclosure and a red ruffed lemur who had escaped into the tiger enclosure and was eaten.
Other fatalities included Goliath the tortoise, electrocuted by live fencing, two giraffes – one that died of suspected E.coli poisoning, another that had a fatal fall on a concrete floor – and seven healthy lion cubs that were put down at just five days old: an incident the report labelled “management euthanasia”. In addition, the report detailed how three animals were run over by a train in 2016 alone and how “since early 2015 six nyala [a type of antelope] have arrived at the zoo and five of these are now dead”.
Barrow Council will be considering the application made by Gill for a fresh licence to operate the zoo at a hearing scheduled for Monday. The Cumbria Zoo Company says it “aims to provide a first-class zoo experience dedicated to inspire in people a respect for animals, the environment and the world in which we live through authentic and sustainable practices”.
Gill claims to have stepped back from all “management activities” at South Lakes. A spokesman said: “The current arrangement sees the entire zoo site leased to Cumbria Zoo Company Limited under a sixmonth lease. Mr Gill remains the licence holder but otherwise has stepped away from all the trading and management activities.”
But the latest report says: “The chief concern here is not the deaths, or even the causes themselves, but the fact that David Gill accepts these losses and does not see a problem with it.”
The council is set to make its decision next week – but for the weekend at least, David Gill’s controversial zoo remains open.