Keeper Dies After Leopard Attack At Dutch Safari Park

A zookeeper died Tuesday after an attack by two leopards.

The woman was caring for two Persian leopards in an indoor facility at Beekse Bergen, a safari park in the southern Netherlands. The park said the animals had been moved inside because of bad weather, and staff are normally kept away from the leopards. There are no cameras in the enclosure, so it is not clear exactly what happened. She suffered serious injuries to her head and neck, according to local media. Emergency surgery followed, and she died on Tuesday.

The park said the keeper joined Beekse Bergen when she was 17 and remained for nearly 40 years, with only a few short interruptions. "Her passing also deeply affects us all, and we are intensely grieving with her family, friends, and loved ones," the park said. "We ask for peace and privacy for her loved ones and our staff, so that they can process this profound loss."

The park also said it would start an independent investigation to determine what led to the incident. A park spokesperson told Omroep Brabant, a local media outlet, that the leopards were behaving naturally. The park describes the leopard as a solitary predatory cat found in Africa and Asia that hunts at night, targeting animals such as deer, monkeys and antelope.

Keepers have died in encounters with big cats at other facilities in recent years. A zookeeper was killed by lions at a safari park in Thailand in 2025 after leaving a vehicle. In October 2024, lions killed a keeper in Crimea after a door in the enclosure was left unlocked. In 2020, a 55-year-old keeper at Zurich's zoo was killed by a Siberian tiger. In 2018, a lion killed a worker at a North Carolina conservatory during routine cleaning. In April 2016, a keeper at Palm Beach Zoo in Florida was killed by a Malayan tiger after a door that should have been locked was left open.

The independent investigation into the Beekse Bergen incident is pending.