YANCEYVILLE, N.C. (NBC) — A zoo employee in North Carolina was killed Sunday after a lion escaped a locked space.
The Conservators Center in Burlington in Caswell County announced a worker was killed during a routine cleaning of an animal enclosure at about 11:30 a.m. ET.
“While a husbandry team led by a professionally trained animal keeper was carrying out a routine enclosure cleaning, one of the lions somehow left a locked space and entered the space the humans were in and quickly killed one person,” the zoo said in a statement.
The lion was shot and killed, the center said.
It is unclear how the lion escaped its enclosure. The name of the victim has yet to be released.
The Conservators Center said it will be closed until further notice.
The nonprofit zoo is an educational nonprofit dedicated to providing a specialized home for select carnivore species, according to it website. It is home to more than 80 animals from and over 21 species and employs more than a dozen full and part-time workers.
Burlington is between Greensboro and Durham.
