Taronga Zoo: Family tells how they had to flee from escaped lions

Dominique and Magnus Perri and their children Lucas and Oliver, had been staying metres from the lion enclosure as part to the zoo's Roar and Snore experience.

They woke to the sound of roaring lions at 4am and despite one of the children saying "Daddy I'm scared", it was shrugged off as part of the 'experience'.

Shortly after, they woke to the sound of the zoo's alarm blaring.

"The zookeepers came running down and started screaming 'get out of your tent, this is a code one, you have to get out, leave your belongs, just go, go, go'," Mr Perri told WSFM.

"We didn't really know what happened or what was going on.

"We got out of the tent and we had to rush up to this little cabin where you had the showers and bathrooms."

Zoo staff did a head count to make sure everyone was there and then locked the door.

"At first they said 'this is probably just a drill, they do them every now and then just to keep on top of things', but pretty quickly it became clear that this is not a drill, this is something real but we still didn't know what it was," Mr Perri said.

"A couple of minutes later we realised the lions were actually out.

"I saw them, they looked massive. They were 18 months old or something, but to me they were fully-grown lions."

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Following their dramatic escape from the lions, the Perri family can see the lighter side of their experience, with Lucas and Oliver keen to go back to the zoo again.

"They were more excited than scared and referred to it as a Jurassic Park experience," Mr Perri said.

Speaking to Today, Mr Perri joked about the experience: "There was blood everywhere and kids missing" before breaking into a wide grin.

Despite the emergency situation following the lions' prison break, Mr Perri praised staff for how they handled the emergency.

"The staff did a fantastic job, it was almost like a pilot's protocol or check list, they knew exactly what to do and what to say and how to react," he said.

Zoo executive director Simon Duffy said the adult lion and four cubs were found outside their main enclosure, but did not get past the second 1.8-metre fence that separates them from the rest of the zoo.

"Four of the lions calmly made their way back into their main exhibit and dens and one lion cub was safely tranquillised," he said.

An investigation will now be conducted into the incident.