Lioness opens enclosure door, mauls keeper to death and wanders around zoo with mate

dailystar.co.uk:

lioness and a mate escaped from a zoo in Iran after managing to open the door of their enclosure and going on to kill their keeper.The 40-year-old man was killed as a result of his injuries before the big cats were then caught, local media reported on Monday.The man, identified only by his family name, Esfandani, was putting meat through a feeding window when the two lions managed to open their cage, kill him, then prowl the zoo for hours.Irna, a news agency in Iran, said a lioness had pushed an iron lever to open the door to the enclosure. “The lioness, which has been in the zoo for several years, managed to open a door of the cage, get out and then attack the 40-year-old guard who had just brought food to the pair of felines,” a zoo employee told state broadcaster IRIB.He said “the two animals managed to escape” Sunday from their cage in the zoo in the city of Arak about 125 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran.“Immediately after the incident, security forces took control of the zoo,” Amir Hadi, the governor of the province was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.To stay up to date with all the latest news, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.He added that “efforts to capture the two felines alive have been successful.”Authorities are investigating the case.

It is unclear whether the zoo had been open to the public at the time."This afternoon one of the carers entered the cage to feed the lion and sadly lost their life after being attacked and suffocated," Mayor Alireza Karimi was quoted by Irna agency as saying. .