A lion has killed a worker at a North Carolina zoological park after it escaped a locked enclosure during a routine cleaning.
Alexandra Black, a 22-year-old recent graduate of Indiana State University, had been an intern at the Conservators Center in Burlington, west of Durham, for about two weeks when she was attacked and killed, the Caswell County Sheriff’s Office said.
A statement by the Black’s family said she had died “following her passion.”
“Alex loved animals. Our beautiful, intelligent, passionate Alex had worked, unpaid, at several animal-related ventures, most recently at Wolf Park in Battleground, Indiana. This was her fourth internship, because she really wanted to make a career of working with animals,” they said.
Black was a native of New Palestine, Indiana, according to the sheriff’s office. She had started working at the Conservators Center her first out-of-state internship 10 days ago, her family said. “She was a beautiful young woman who had just started her career, there was a terrible accident, and we are mourning,” the family said.
