Don’t hurt tiger that killed Rosa
– FRIEND ON MAULED KEEPER’S VIGILANCE
TRAGIC zoo keeper Rosa King once told a pal that she knew one of her favourite tigers saw her “as his next meal”.
Rosa was so alert to the dangers she faced that she is said to have been “meticulous” about safety.
The 33-year-old was mauled to death on Monday by one of the tigers she cared for in the zoo where she had worked for 14 years.
Mum Andrea said Rosa, the zoo’s carnivore keeper, loved her job and “wouldn’t have done anything else”.
Friend Tracey Eyre told the Daily Mirror: “Rosa knew she was dealing with dangerous animals, she knew they were wild.
“She said Blizzard often looked at her as if to say, ‘You’re going to be my next meal if I get the chance’.
“Because of that she was vigilant and meticulous in everything.”
Tracey, 48, said Rosa adored the tigers. She added: “They were like family to her – her little babies.
“She was aware of the dangers and took every precaution.”
Rosa was said to have been in floods of tears when white tiger Blizzard died of old age in February.
She also suffered the loss of Blizzard’s mate, Lady-Belle, a former circus tiger which she fed by hand.
Police said the tiger that killed Rosa – one of four currently at the zoo – had not yet been put to sleep.
And friends of the keeper claim she would not have wanted it put down. A campaign has been launched to save the animal’s life.
Tracey said Rosa spoke to her after keeper Sarah McClay, 24, was killed by a tiger at a Cumbria park in 2013. She said: “Rosa said, ‘All keepers know the risks’. I know she wouldn’t want the tiger destroyed.”
Chris Draper, of animal charity Born Free, said: “These tragedies show just what can go wrong keeping these animals in captivity.
“The battle for tiger conservation will be won or lost in the remaining tiger habitat, not in zoos thousands of miles away.”
Rosa, who told pals of her “pride” at meeting Sir David Attenborough in 2014, died at Hamerton Zoo Park, near Huntingdon, Cambs. She cared for white tigers Mohan and Shiva, and Malayan tigers Cicip, eight, and Sahaja, four, as well as the zoo’s cheetahs.
Witnesses told of seeing a female keeper, believed to be Rosa, inside a tiger enclosure after hearing shouts.
It is not known whether she was attacked coming to the aid of a colleague. Tracey’s husband Steve, 57, said: “That would have been typical Rosa, she’d help anybody.” Photographer Garry Chisholm, 59, who visited often, called Rosa “the shining light” of the zoo. He said: “It revolved around her.”