Tragic news. Another article from CNN said she had worked with these leopards for the last 8 years.

The leopards are being treated as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, which I’d think would be what this person would have wanted, since she spent almost all her adult life working with animals. Just because they are familiar with human doesn’t make these animals any less wild. It is a shame they couldn’t save her in the end.

I don’t work with anything that could kill me directly, but I have to put my body parts near animals that could definitely mess me up a good bit. I’ve also talked to the people in the sanctuary near my job where they kept wolves, and the wolves would only tolerate, I think, one specific staff member being in their enclosure. It’s impossible to ignore the risks involved when working with wildlife, but we do it because of a love for animals. Bless her for giving near 40 years to their care and safety.

I found a photo of some people putting a GPS collar on a Persian leopard to give us an example of the size of these cats.

I’ve heard that leopards have some of the strongest hunting instincts, making them even more damgerous than any other large cats. People that raised them from cubs and are 100% family are still hyper vigilant to never turn their backs to them for this reason. Even if it’s just play fighting for them, it can easily kill a person.

That’s awful, he didn’t deserve this. Imagine the life-long trauma of knowing that you killed a man.