Lion kills young worker at North Carolina wildlife sanctuary

[JacksinPA]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rth-carolina-wildlife-sanctuary-idUSKCN1OU00I

(Reuters) - A lion at a North Carolina private wildlife sanctuary fatally mauled a 22-year-old worker on Sunday before being shot and killed by local law enforcement, officials said.

The sheriff’s office in Caswell County, North Carolina, said Alexandra Black, who started her job as an intern at the facility two weeks ago, was part of a team doing routine cleaning of an enclosure when she was attacked, local media reported.
============================================
If you kept me locked in a cage I would dream of getting out & killing the first human I saw.

 

[Lovebug]

How unfortunate. The worker was probably doing something she loved doing, and the lion did what came natural. The perfect storm.

 

[JacksinPA]

How unfortunate. The worker was probably doing something she loved doing, and the lion did what came natural. The perfect storm.

Yes. unfortunate in both ways: she & the lion both died.

 

[Tom Horn]

In other news, as Jacksin was cleaning near the end of Jumbo the elephant, it partially sat on him, thereby depriving him temporarily of a way to breath. Video at 10pm

 

[Lovebug]

Yes. unfortunate in both ways: she & the lion both died.

Do you remember the gorilla being killed after a kid fell into the enclosure? Dang, I really feel for the kid and the family, I really do. I also feel for the gorilla. He didn't do anything wrong, anything at all. Why is it that the innocent have to pay for the stupidity of others? Please don't get me wrong, the kid didn't do anything wrong, but inadequate enclosures, not enough oversight, inadequate protocols and competent people to follow those protocols may be to blame. Not the lion, not the gorilla, but they are both dead, aren't they?

 

[Xelor]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rth-carolina-wildlife-sanctuary-idUSKCN1OU00I

(Reuters) - A lion at a North Carolina private wildlife sanctuary fatally mauled a 22-year-old worker on Sunday before being shot and killed by local law enforcement, officials said.

...Alexandra Black [began an internship] at the facility two weeks ago was part of a team doing routine cleaning ... when she was attacked, local media reported.
============================================
If you kept me locked in a cage I would dream of getting out & killing the first human I saw.

What indicates the animal was kept locked in a cage? The mishap occurred at the Conservators Center. The facility uses enclosures, but doesn't appear to keep animals "locked in cages."

From the article:

"A sheriff’s deputy shot and killed the lion so that Black’s body could be retrieved, the Center said. The sheriff’s office said its deputies tried and failed to tranquilize the lion before resorting to deadly force."

​

• Did they really try to tranquilize the lion? I find it hard to believe they tried all that hard, if at all, to do so. Why do I think that? Because were it a black man, all of whom are a good deal smaller targets than are lions, with whatever gun LEOs shot at him, they'd have hit him. Firing a tranq dart a lion requires only that one hit the lion and that the dart have enough of a sufficiently powerful tranquilizer.
  • IMMOBILIZATION OF FREE-RANGING AFRICAN LIONS (PANTHERA LEO) WITH A COMBINATION OF XYLAZINE HYDROCHLORIDE AND KETAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE (1985 article)
    
    The combination of 55 mg/ml xy!azine hydrochloride and 200 mg/ml ketamine hydrochloride was effective for immobilizing African lions... These doses could be delivered easily in 3-ml darts. The use of lightweight darts and a blowgun was found to be useful as a supplement to longer range dart projector systems since many animals could be approached at short range.
• Black was already dead; thus there was no urgent need to retrieve her corpse. LEOs could well have called an animal expert to perform the tranquilizing shot and waited a few hours for him/her to arrive and tranq the beast. Additionally, there was, obviously, no need to admit others into the area in which the lion situated itself after mauling Black.

I have never cottoned to destroying captive animals that do what animals of their species just do.[SUP]1[/SUP] I don't because in playing with my pets, I have countless times been bitten or scratched. By and large the only reason none of them were limb-costing or fatal (or nearly so) is because my pets aren't big. That said, they play with me with about the same tactics and force they use to play with one another or to just do the things they do.

For instance, when an unfamiliar creature moves, it triggers in a cat, large or small, the "oh, look, it must be playtime because the entertainment is here; I'm gonna play with it" and "go get it" instincts. Any cat owner who's, while their cat was sitting on the bed, wiggled his/her toes under but a thin sheet surely got claw or tooth punctures as a result of having done so. That's just what cats do.[SUP]2[/SUP] If the cat spying "the entertainment" is the size of puma or larger, the cat's notion of playing around can be fatal to comparatively slow and weak humans.


Note:

1. That the animals are captive is critical because such animals, namely those that are well fed such as of those in most sanctuaries, don't want for food. Accordingly, it strains credulity to think such animals kill much of anything, as do totally wild animals, because they're hungry. Moreover, lions, unless they are unusually hungry, such as after unsuccessfully hunting (something they only do when they are hungry), hunt at night.
   • Feeding and keeping predators in sanctuaries
     • Jukani Sanctuary
2. One thing cats don't do, unless they were taught to do so, is kill to eat. All the pet cats I've had -- all were raised from about eight weeks old -- by me chase down other critters and literally play them to death...the thing's smaller than they are, it moved and they saw/heard it move, so they stalk it and catch it. In doing so, they nearly always mortally wound, but never eat, the thing. (Usually, they "inform" someone of their accomplishment, but occasionally they don't, but eventually my housekeeper finds out they caught something and brought it inside before the critter died.)

 

[Bodi]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rth-carolina-wildlife-sanctuary-idUSKCN1OU00I

(Reuters) - A lion at a North Carolina private wildlife sanctuary fatally mauled a 22-year-old worker on Sunday before being shot and killed by local law enforcement, officials said.

The sheriff’s office in Caswell County, North Carolina, said Alexandra Black, who started her job as an intern at the facility two weeks ago, was part of a team doing routine cleaning of an enclosure when she was attacked, local media reported.
============================================
If you kept me locked in a cage I would dream of getting out & killing the first human I saw.

The lion deserved to be shot for such an inhumane violation....

 

[Bodi]

Do you remember the gorilla being killed after a kid fell into the enclosure? Dang, I really feel for the kid and the family, I really do. I also feel for the gorilla. He didn't do anything wrong, anything at all. Why is it that the innocent have to pay for the stupidity of others? Please don't get me wrong, the kid didn't do anything wrong, but inadequate enclosures, not enough oversight, inadequate protocols and competent people to follow those protocols may be to blame. Not the lion, not the gorilla, but they are both dead, aren't they?

The lion murdered a person...

 

[Hawkeye10]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rth-carolina-wildlife-sanctuary-idUSKCN1OU00I

(Reuters) - A lion at a North Carolina private wildlife sanctuary fatally mauled a 22-year-old worker on Sunday before being shot and killed by local law enforcement, officials said.

The sheriff’s office in Caswell County, North Carolina, said Alexandra Black, who started her job as an intern at the facility two weeks ago, was part of a team doing routine cleaning of an enclosure when she was attacked, local media reported.
============================================
If you kept me locked in a cage I would dream of getting out & killing the first human I saw.

My brain jumps immediately to suspecting lack of proper training of the human.

 

[Xelor]

My brain jumps immediately to suspecting lack of proper training of the human.

I don't know that I'm ready to "go there," but in writing my post above, I wondered about the level of preparation the worker had.

I decided not to address that because

• I have no way to find out,
• "zoo" protocols are outside of my "wheelhouse,"
• it wasn't Black's first internship (presumably her prior one was similar and had similar risks?) and she had a B.S. in animal behavior from IN University (IU Animal Behavior program), and
• it's unclear from the story's information whether Black was/wasn't in the lion enclosure/exhibit, some other enclosure/exhibit or ostensibly in a secured cage when the mauling happened.
  
  As you can see from the images below as well as others, it appears the facility maintains its large cats in "backyard-sized" (1/4 to 1/2 acre by the looks of some of the photos) enclosures, and the enclosures have or be connected to what seem like cages (at the preceding link there's a video showing two lions in one of the "cage-like" areas; click through the photos until you get to one that has a lion moving -- it's the one right before the pumpkins).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

It'll be interesting to learn how the lion got out of wherever it was supposed to have been secured.




Off Topic:
Did you want the video to which the OP-er linked? After the lion story, Reuters lists off its top stories. The lion story was first. I guess Sunday was a "slow news day." LOL

 

[Hawkeye10]

I don't know that I'm ready to "go there," but in writing my post above, I wondered about the level of preparation the worker had.

I decided not to address that because
-------------
snip

I dont know what video you mean but no. I am not expecting to find out what happened here anytime soon on account of the liability, the so-called community zoo has no interest in talking, and so far no one is talking.

 

[Xelor]

I dont know what video you mean but no. I am not expecting to find out what happened here anytime soon on account of the liability, the so-called community zoo has no interest in talking, and so far no one is talking.

The video accompanying the rubric article to which the OP-er linked in his/her OP.

Red:
True that.

 

[Kobie]

The lion murdered a person...

It’s not “murder” when a wild animal kills a person.

 

[Bodi]

It’s not “murder” when a wild animal kills a person.

What else would you call it?

 

[Rexedgar]

What else would you call it?

.......law of the jungle....? ....Darwinism.....?

 

[Bodi]

.......law of the jungle....? ....Darwinism.....?

The Lion was sentenced and killed... Why?

 

[Xelor]

I dont know what video you mean but no. I am not expecting to find out what happened here anytime soon on account of the liability, the so-called community zoo has no interest in talking, and so far no one is talking.

I just noticed I remarked on two videos in the "lion enclosure" post.

• "Slow news day" video --> That's the one that is in the OP-er's rubric article link.
• "Secured cage-like area" video --> That's the one found at the hyperlink "behind" the word "others."

 

[Rexedgar]

The Lion was sentenced and killed... Why?

.......extra-judicial?

 

[Xelor]

.......law of the jungle....? ....Darwinism.....?

• Fatal mauling
• A killing
• Fatal encounter
• Mortal wounding

There are plenty of things one might call it besides any of the many things it isn't, among them murder.

 

[Bodi]

• Fatal mauling
• A killing
• Fatal encounter
• Mortal wounding

There are plenty of things one might call it besides any of the many things it isn't, among them murder.

Pre meditated and intentional... Murder.