Busch established Zion Wildlife Gardens in 2002, having previously operated a smaller facility in Kerikeri. He was charismatic enough to attract a television crew: the series The Lion Man aired internationally, drawing visitors to Kamo who wanted to see the man who walked among big cats. Behind the cameras, though, the operation was financially fragile. By 2006, Busch needed his mother Patricia to bail out the business. She took control as sole director, and he was eventually dismissed in November 2008. That same month, a government investigation revealed that 21 lions and 9 tigers had been surgically declawed at the facility between 2000 and 2008 -- procedures Busch had arranged and asked veterinarians to keep confidential. The Ministry of Primary Industries found that prosecutions under the Animal Welfare Act were complicated by the fact that government vets had been aware of the declawing without raising objections.

On 27 May 2009, senior zookeeper Dalu Mncube was cleaning an enclosure when Abu, a 260-kilogram white tiger, attacked him. Mncube, a South African national who colleagues described as devoted to the animals, was killed. The tiger was shot so rescuers could reach his body. Earlier that same year, Abu had bitten another handler, who Mncube himself had pulled to safety. The park closed briefly, reopened after enclosure modifications, and a 2013 coroner's report cleared management of wrongdoing. But the coroner also recommended new legislation for health and safety in zoos -- an acknowledgment that the existing framework had gaps wide enough for a person to die in. Patricia Busch lost her assets in 2013 when the finance company holding the property's mortgage took possession. The receivership that followed saw the facility sold to new owners in 2012, who renamed it Kingdom of Zion and reopened it in April of that year.

The Kingdom of Zion period brought its own turbulence. Co-director Ian Stevenson, a chartered accountant from Tauranga, was censured by the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants in 2012 for mishandling client funds, then struck off entirely in 2013. When the Ministry of Primary Industries ordered the zoo closed in July 2014 because enclosures failed containment standards, Auckland-based investment company Bolton Equities stepped in, purchasing the business and renaming it Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary. Bolton Equities spent more than NZ$9 million upgrading facilities over the next seven years, but regulatory delays kept the gates shut until December 2021. The operating company was placed into liquidation in March 2023 after one of its co-directors was convicted of indecently assaulting four women. A new operator, Janette Vallance, eventually reopened in September 2023, running the facility without incident -- but the property was listed for sale.

By late 2025, the roster of animals that had once included tigers, cheetahs, leopards, servals, and baboons had dwindled to seven lions, all between 18 and 21 years old. Lions in captivity can live into their early twenties, but age was taking its toll. On 3 November 2025, Bolton Equities notified the Ministry of Primary Industries that the remaining animals would be humanely euthanised. White lioness Imvula, 21, and white lion Sibili, 18, were put down first due to serious health problems. Operator Vallance confirmed their deaths while noting that new parties had expressed interest in buying the property -- raising the possibility that the remaining five lions might yet be saved. The sanctuary that had sheltered these animals for years, through all its changes of name and ownership, had reached a final chapter that no rebranding could alter. What remained were a few elderly cats, aging out of a facility that never quite found stable ground beneath its feet.