A keeper who had worked at Beekse Bergen for 40 years died after a leopard attack in an indoor enclosure. The woman was caring for two Persian leopards when the attack happened on Saturday, and she died on Tuesday after surgery.
Beekse Bergen said she began her career there when she was 17 and had worked there on-and-off for four decades. After the attack, she managed to alert colleagues by walkie-talkie, then was taken to hospital in a helicopter in a critical condition.
Beekse Bergen attack timeline
The park said the leopards had been brought inside because of bad weather conditions. There were no CCTV cameras inside the enclosure, so the sequence inside the room is not visible from video evidence. That leaves the walkie-talkie warning and the emergency transfer as the clearest record of what happened after the attack began.
Beekse Bergen said it would launch an independent investigation into the incident and create a memorial location for guests and staff members to share their condolences. The park also said the leopards were behaving naturally and would not be euthanised, a position that will shape how staff and visitors judge the incident while the investigation runs its course.
Persian leopards and staff response
The collision between a fatal attack and the decision not to euthanise the animals leaves Beekse Bergen balancing grief, animal care, and scrutiny over procedures. The keeper’s injuries were to her head and neck, and her death after surgery turned a workplace emergency into a wider reckoning for the park’s staff.
For colleagues, the practical next step is the memorial location and the investigation, which should clarify how the indoor enclosure was being managed when the leopards were inside. For readers following the case, the central unresolved point is how the attack unfolded in the space with no CCTV cameras, and whether the weather-related move indoors changed the risk inside the enclosure.
