Zoo keeper dies after being attacked in leopard enclosure, Dutch safari park says

A Dutch zookeeper died days after being mauled in a leopard enclosure, the safari park announced Tuesday.

The woman was attacked while caring for two Persian leopards at an indoor facility in Beekse Bergen Park in the south of the Netherlands.

It is not clear what happened in the compound because there are no cameras. The animals were indoors due to bad weather and staff are generally kept away from leopards.

She was seriously injured in the head and neck, according to local media. She underwent emergency surgery but died Tuesday, the zoo said in a statement.

“The warden started at Beekse Bergen Safari Park at the age of 17 and worked here, with only a few short interruptions, for almost 40 years,” the park said in a statement on social media. “His passing also affects us deeply, and we grieve intensely with his family, friends and loved ones. We ask for peace and privacy for his loved ones and our staff, so that they can process this profound loss.”

An independent investigation will be opened to establish the circumstances of the incident, the zoo added.

The leopards were behaving naturally, a park spokesperson told Omroep Brabant, a local media outlet.

“They are and remain predators,” Brabant said.

According to the zoo, the leopard is “a solitary predatory cat found in Africa and Asia” and primarily hunts animals such as deer, monkeys and antelope at night.

The big cats have killed rangers in other parks around the world in recent years.

Last year a zookeeper was killed in a lion attack after getting out of his vehicle at a safari park in Thailand.

In October 2024, a group of lions mutilated a zookeeper to death in Crimea after a door to their enclosure was left open.

In 2020, a 55-year-old Zurich zookeeper was killed by one of the park’s Siberian tigers.

In 2018, a lion escaped from its enclosure and killed a recent college graduate on a North Carolina sunroom during a routine cleaning.

A Malayan tiger killed a zookeeper at the Palm Beach Zoo in Florida in April 2016 after a door that was supposed to be locked was left open and she was attacked.