Moscow:
A pride of lions mauled a zookeeper to death at one of Europe’s largest cat parks on Wednesday after a door in their enclosure was left unlocked, researchers said.
The mauling took place in the Taigan Safari Park on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, one of the largest lion breeding grounds in Europe and home to about 60 of the predators.
“A criminal case has been opened over the death of a worker at the Taigan Lion Park as a result of a predator attack,” the Moscow-installed Investigative Committee of Crimea and Sevastopol said in a statement.
The employee, who had worked at the park for nearly 17 years, died after she “went to clean a cage containing three lions without closing the latch of a door between two rooms of the enclosure,” investigators said.
The park’s owner, Oleg Zubkov, identified the victim as head zookeeper Leokadia Perevalova and called the incident a “tragic” mistake.
“It is unclear how and why this happened, as the animals could not have done something like this on their own and there were apparently no humans around,” he said in a statement on his blog.
“The staff who discovered the body were unfortunately unable to provide further assistance as she had simply been torn into pieces,” he said.
On his Telegram channel, Zubkov praised Perevalova as a “valuable employee” who was the “soul of our park”, adding that “the human factor of forgetfulness played a role”.
“Unfortunately, when I arrived there was nothing I could do to help. (They are) apex predators and they don’t forgive mistakes, he said.
A criminal case has been opened into the death of a person due to workplace negligence, investigators said.
The expansive 70-hectare park opened to visitors in 2012 on the site of a former military base.
Authorities closed the zoo for a month in December 2019 after accusing Zubkov of feeding the animals expired food, an accusation he denied.
He accused Crimea’s Russian-installed authorities of trying to “bankrupt” his company and deliberately freeze his projects after they seized power in 2014.
Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, but is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.
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