The tragedy occurred in the Conservators Center in North Carolina. The male lion killed a worker on Sunday. Caswell County Sheriff's Office identified the victim as a 22-year-old girl who hailed from Indiana and was an intern at the facility. She had been there for a very brief period. It seems the incident happened when a team led by a trained animal keeper was doing routine cleaning. One of the lions escaped from the locked space entered the space meant for humans and killed the girl
CNN reports that the center did not identify the victim, but the Sheriff's Office filled in the gap.
She recently graduated from Indiana State University. Her passion was the zoological industry, and she had experience of an internship. She was not a staff member as such; there was a staff member who was supervising. The center’s executive director, Mindy Stinner, confirms this and adds, “this person wanted to spend a lifetime around these animals."
The Conservators Center has a variety of animals
The zoological park is regulated the US Department of Agriculture and houses a wide variety of wild animals. It has provisions of guided walking tours near the animal enclosures. Mindy Stinner is an educator and is one of the founders of the center. She founded it in 1999 in North Carolina. It is an educational nonprofit affair and had started its operations by conducting rescue and sanctuary work.
Gradually it evolved into a community zoo. However, some people believe the zoo is not a good idea.
The rogue lion was a male, and its escape from the enclosure is a mystery. The practice is to shift them to a separate area during the routine cleaning operations. The authorities had to euthanize the animal to retrieve the body of the victim.
There were visitors at the park when the tragedy happened, and the officials moved them out. Incidentally. animals are euthanized for various reasons.
Lion kills 1 worker after escaping its North Carolina enclosure https://t.co/IaghrRkSlL
— TIME (@TIME) December 30, 2018
The lion had to be euthanized
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Conservators Center in North Carolina was founded in 1999 and started organizing public tours in 2007.
It is proud of thousands of footfalls every year and accommodates more than 80 animals covering a wide variety of species. It had accepted 14 lions and tigers in 2004 to extend assistance to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The animals were living in “unacceptable conditions,” and the center stepped in to help them out.
The center is not new to such jobs and will investigate to check if the tragedy was avoidable. Loss of any human life is sad and, when the victim happens to be a girl in the prime of her life, it is still more painful.