Posted on 04/16/2016 4:58:39 AM PDT by HomerBohn
PALM BEACH, Fla. _ An employee at the Palm Beach Zoo died in a Malayan tiger attack while performing a routine procedure Friday afternoon, a zoo spokeswoman said.
Zoo officials confirmed tiger handler Stacey Konwesier was killed Friday by a tiger.
Zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter said Konweiser was preparing a male tiger for a show at the zoo called "Tiger Talk" just before 2 p.m. when the attack happened.
Konweiser, a three-year veteran of the zoo and tiger expert, was doing normal procedural actions with the tiger when it attacked her. Her husband also works for the zoo.
"Stacey was an expert," Carter said. "She dedicated her life to her mission of protecting tigers."
The male tiger was quickly subdued, allowing officials to reach the woman. She was taken to St. Mary's Medical Center, where she died.
"This is a family who is in mourning right now," Carter said of the zoo employees. "We all, myself included, doubled over. We're a close-knit group here at Palm Beach Zoo. There were tears."
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will be investigating the death. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and grief counselors were at the zoo.
"It's very new and all the details are still coming in," said Carol Lyn Parrish, spokeswoman for the wildlife commission. "Because it's an active investigation for us, we are not releasing any information."
Malayan tigers are "an endangered species _ less than 250 in the wild. Four live here at Palm Beach Zoo," Carter said.
Zoo keepers help breed the tigers to make sure they don't go extinct, Carter said. "So that's what was going on with this keeper here today, and this is just an unfortunate situation," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
I’m not going into the weeds with you. I’ll just say that I guessed correctly that you only recently signed up here. I’d like to say ‘welcome to FR’ but I can’t.
It’s a shame that she has now become an object lesson on what not to do.
Frank Buck and Clyde Beatty seemed to live fairly long lives, without being done in. Maybe because they carried whips and guns, and acted tough and intimidating towards the animals...?
They’d probably be deemed un-PC nowadays, and have protesters picket them, and CNN make propaganda films demonizing them. They’d be as culturally despised by our idiot populace as that dentist-hunter who went big-game hunting in Africa last year.
Maybe she should have considered a career in chartered accountancy
You miss the point....... accountants don’t make a difference
I'm sorry but I can't help but feel there is a large unhealthy portion of ego involved ie 'I understand these animals and have a kinship with them etc.' It's all well and good to love animals as a kid and to want to become a vet, a marine biologist (how many times have we heard that one?), a zookeeper, etc. but I also see many of these people just a little too smug...they relate to the animals in ways us normal humans can't etc.
The reality is that these animals are the product of the evolution we are always hearing about and that means one thing has kept them alive through the centuries: INSTINCT. They don't see a cute and cuddly trainer: they see potential food. As long as they don't sense a threat to their food source, they are willing to call a truce but it's never the cute and cuddly let's-be-friends as portrayed in the media. Anyone who's watched a nature documentary knows that animals, especially big cats, can and will lose their 'temper' for no apparent reason and that squabbles that can lead to violence occur even within social groups, families, etc.
Speaking of instinct, humans that go home in one piece every day will tend to let their guard down the next day and the day after that. It's human nature. This sort of laxity is partially what killed Steve Irwin although he had plenty of chances before that to meet a swift and sudden demise.
Konweiser, a three-year veteran of the zoo and tiger expert
Expertise does not extend to mind-reading, especially of a wild animal.
was doing normal procedural actions with the tiger when it attacked her.
And here's the modern media doing their bit again with horrific grammar and sentence construction. Doing normal procedural actions??!?! What the hell does that even mean?
"Stacey was an expert," Carter said.
Again, that means absolutely naff-all to the animal.
"She dedicated her life to her mission of protecting tigers."
Not to put too fine a point on it but a tiger in a zoo is rather 'protected' already although the PETA wackos would say it's no protection at all. It's also a prisoner ie removed from its normal habitat (even if born in captivity) which zookeepers have long acknowledged can produce erratic, unpredictable behavior.
Two things...first,I've seen a lion kill in person...up close (well,we were about 50 yards away)...in Amboselli National Park in Kenya.As a result I'm inclined to approach this in a different way,having seen big cats doing their thing.Second,was she really trying to "save" it at that point? If she was a vet trying to render medical care to the cat *that* would qualify as "trying to save".But preparing it for a show...maybe not.
Just sayin'...
Over the last few years I’ve noticed that the snarkyness here at FR has gotten worse. It hasn’t gotten to the level of the LiveLeak crowd but seems to be headed in that direction. It is especially bad in the Byzantine fighting going on here over the GOP nomination.
You don’t have to welcome me. Be a realist. Why should I feel sorry for her?
Have you explained to your kids/grandkids where their meat comes from? Or do they think it just comes from the store like their milk?
Just saw this story on the news, and they showed a picture of her without the face paint. Said she was 38.
Really? My coffee mug that says, "It took an accountant to catch Al Capone ... Be an accountant with conviction" says differently....
Hope for your sake you got your taxes filed yesterday.
The most competent person I ever saw working with tigers was Gunther Gebell Williams with Ringling Bros. fantastic.
Tiger “expert” my A$$! To a tiger meat is meat!
Great post. All true. Cats are incredible. Perhaps the most advanced non-primate animals on earth. They are supreme hunters and killers — even the domestic versions. If you get in a cage with big cat all bets are off.
It didn't work out well at Sea World, either...not too long ago.
Leni
Frank and Clyde should have tried painting their faces to look like a tiger and perhaps added a tail. That would have attracted the attention of the tigers.
Sigfreid and Roy were tiger experts to. Right up to the day one of them got mauled. You get into a cage with a tiger and the odds of being eaten by a tiger go way up. My odds of being eaten by a tiger are zero. Tiger experts get eaten by tigers. I won’t. Hmmm
Kill another animal, I hope.
Just read every book Jim Corbett wrote. That man was a tiger expert.
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