Zookeeper: It wasn't the lion's fault

Hanna: "These animals are curious. Often times you think they are playful, but this is a 300-pound wild animal that's wild ...."

Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing interviews with newsmakers from around the world.

(CNN) -- Private tours at the Busch Gardens theme park in Tampa, Florida, have been suspended after a lion bit off the arm of a 21-year-old female zookeeper. Park officials say Amanda Bourassa was giving her family a private tour Sunday when she stuck her finger into the cage minutes after feeding the animal. That was enough for the lion to grab her arm. CNN's Bill Hemmer spoke with Jack Hanna, director of the Columbus Zoo, about that attack Tuesday.

HEMMER: Good to see you again. I wish we could talk about something else, but nonetheless, what do you make of what happened? I know you think that Busch Gardens' track record is excellent. Tell us why that safety record is so good.

HANNA: No. 1, there are about 125 million visitors a year at our zoos and aquariums, and American Zoo and Aquarium Association have very strict standards for all of us to adhere to. We [zoos] have inspections about every three to five years. Busch Gardens not only adheres to all those things that the AZA says, but they also set these standards in their safety procedures, which a lot of us even follow. So, you know, when these things happen, as I tell people that first come to work here, wild animals are like a loaded gun.

And I must say that in the last 20 years, I don't know of one zoo visitor that has been killed or maimed that bad by an animal in the zoo. Obviously, as zookeepers, our job tends to be dangerous at times.

HEMMER: Jack, Max the lion, 350 pounds, was not put down, was not put to sleep? What does this tell you, if anything?

HANNA: Well, you know these are wild animals. And as I said before, they are always wild. The old saying was, "You can usually train a wild animal, but never, never tame a wild animal." You have to remember that these animals are wild animals. They are ambassadors to their cousins in the wild. They are here to educate millions of people about conservation and animals in the wild. Obviously, it wasn't Max's fault what he did. That was a natural instinct about what Max did. My feelings go out to the family.

We had a similar accident that happened to me in 1973, and it's a tragic thing that happens, and I am sorry to say, it does happen in our business.

HEMMER: Jack, it is also said that the woman may have been feeding the animal at the time in a way where she stuck part of her finger or maybe even part of her hand through an area in a cage that was about 1.5 inches wide. Do you know of such facilities? Have you worked behind such facilities?

A female lion at the Columbus Zoo.

HANNA: Right. For example, right now, I'm behind scenes at the lion habitat here at the Columbus Zoological Park. We have a beautiful area up here where people watch. If I were to come up to here, and put my hand up in here, the lion comes up like he wants something. If you did this, that lion could grab a finger, grab something and take it through, and of course at that point, it can only go through so far. So I have no idea what happened there.

These animals are curious. Often times you think they are playful, but this is a 300-pound wild animal that's wild, that's capable of taking down a 2,000-pound buffalo in a matter of 30 seconds.

After 34 years in this business, I understand how powerful the king of beasts is. These are female lions right here, and of course the male -- I don't see him around right now -- but he is even bigger than that.

HEMMER: How common are private tours at zoological parks?

HANNA: Here at this park, it's common. For example, I am a zoo director and if the keepers have permission to go back here with their family, they usually know the procedures take to provide safety. Obviously, some areas are off limits.

It's a procedure we do in zoological parks and aquariums quite a bit, because these are people who not only might be donors to the zoo, or people that might say, 'We gave a million dollars to enclosure this park, can we see what we've built?' So we do the best we can working this way.

HEMMER: Jack, I want to go back to the case in Florida. The woman was 21 years of age. Clearly, she did not have a lot of experience when it comes to the amount of time she's probably worked at that particular zoo, and I know you don't know a whole lot about her case. But speaking in general terms, is that a typical age for people who deal with animals such as Max?

HANNA: We have a lot of people come out of colleges and high school, 18 or 19 years of age that usually work around the animals. I am sure this young lady has been in her area maybe a year or so. So she was very familiar probably with the procedures that Busch Gardens has and the safety procedures there.

Obviously, nothing is 100 percent, as we know, in life, and my heart goes out to her and her family. These are things that happen. All the people that work at our zoo understand what they are in for when they work at a zoological park.

We do all the safety we can do, as does Busch Gardens and those parks. So all we can do is the best we can do. And human error might be involved; I don't know what happened at that park. But I can tell you one thing, that Busch Gardens does have some of the finest safety procedures of anybody in the world.