What happened at Beekse Bergen
A woman who worked as a keeper at the Beekse Bergen safari park in the south of the Netherlands has died after being attacked by a leopard, the park announced on Tuesday, according to CBS News. She had been caring for two Persian leopards in an indoor facility when the attack took place.
Local media reported that she suffered serious injuries to her head and neck. She underwent emergency surgery but died on Tuesday, the park said in a statement. The attack came days before her death.
The precise circumstances are not clear. CBS News reported that the enclosure has no cameras, so there is no footage of the incident. The leopards had been kept inside because of bad weather, and staff are normally kept at a distance from the animals, according to the report.
A career spanning decades
In its statement on social media, the park said the keeper joined Beekse Bergen at age 17 and worked there, apart from a few short breaks, for nearly 40 years. Her death, it said, affects everyone at the park.
The park said it was grieving alongside her family, friends and loved ones. It asked for peace and privacy for them and for its staff so they can process what it called a profound loss.
Investigation and the park's account
Beekse Bergen said an independent investigation will be launched to establish how the incident unfolded. No findings have been released, and the park has not said who will conduct the inquiry or how long it may take.
A park spokesperson told the local outlet Omroep Brabant that the leopards had been behaving naturally. The outlet quoted the line "They are, and remain, predators." The park describes the leopard on its own materials as a solitary predatory cat found in Africa and Asia that mainly hunts animals such as deer, monkeys and antelope at night.
Similar incidents elsewhere
CBS News noted that big cats have killed caretakers at other facilities around the world in recent years. Last year, a zookeeper in Thailand died in a lion attack after stepping out of his vehicle at a safari park. In October 2024, a group of lions in Crimea mauled a zookeeper to death after a door inside their enclosure was left unlocked.
Earlier cases include a 55-year-old keeper killed by a Siberian tiger at Zurich's zoo in 2020. In 2018, a lion escaped its enclosure and killed a recent college graduate at a North Carolina conservatory during routine cleaning. In April 2016, a Malayan tiger killed a zookeeper at the Palm Beach Zoo in Florida after a door that should have been locked was left open.
