Zoo grieves after tiger kills keeper

Hamilton Zoo will be closed for almost a week as staff mourn a female keeper killed by a male tiger on Sunday morning.

Hamilton City Council chiefs are declining to say how the fatal mauling happened, whether anything could have been done to foresee the tragedy, or even the likely fate of Oz, the rare Sumatran tiger that killed the keeper.

Emergency services were called to the zoo just after 11am to treat the keeper who was critically injured after being attacked by the tiger – but she died before help arrived.

Hamilton police are now working with Hamilton Zoo staff and Worksafe NZ to investigate.

The victim’s name is not likely to be released until today.

Staff contacted by Fairfax NZ on Sunday were too distraught to comment on their colleague’s death, but at a press conference on Sunday afternoon Hamilton City Council chief executive Richard Briggs said they were ‘‘deeply saddened’’.

‘‘We have spoken to the staff and offered our support,’’ he said. ‘‘They are devastated. The whole zoo is a really tight-knit family.’’

Briggs said the zoo would be closed until at least Thursday while investigations were under way.

He could not rule out Oz having to be eventually euthanised as a consequence of the attack.

However, for the meantime he and the other tigers were all being ‘‘securely contained’’.

There were no visitors near the enclosure at the time of the attack and at no point was any member of the public in danger from the tigers, he said.

Briggs declined to give details on how the attack happened and whether anything could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

It was the first fatal incident in the zoo’s history, and the site would be blessed between now and Thursday, he said.

Meanwhile, Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker said it was ‘‘a very sad day’’.

‘‘There is a very close staff community here at the zoo.’’

The zoo has five Sumatran tigers. As well as Oz, they have Mencari, Sali and 11-month-old cubs Kembali and Kirana.

Oz was brought to Hamilton Zoo in 2013 from Auckland Zoo, as part of the Global Species Management plan for Sumatran tigers. He was paired up with Sali and the cubs were born in November of 2014.

The Sumatran tiger is a rare sub-species of the tiger and only 500 exist in the wild.

Visitor Dave Rich was at the zoo on Sunday when he said he was rushed out by keepers.

‘‘Zoo keepers came up and sort of said everyone has to kinda get out, and they seemed a bit panicky so I thought maybe an animal escaped, but they guaranteed an animal didn’t escape,’’ Rich said.

He had seen the tigers between 45 minutes and one hour before the evacuation, he said. ‘‘[The tigers] looked fine. There was a keeper in there who opened up the gate so the tigers could leave the inside area to go outside. But that’s all I saw.’’

It’s not the first time a keeper has had a potentially lethal encounter with a tiger at Hamilton Zoo. In 2013, a keeper was in an enclosure she thought was empty before finding herself alone with a 5-year-old female tiger after a gate had been left open.

The tragedy follows the death of lion keeper Dalu Mncube in May 2009 at Whangarei’s Zion Wildlife Garden.

He was fatally mauled by a white tiger. The 260kg tiger was shot dead shortly after the attack.

In April 2012, zoo keeper Dr Helen Schofield was killed by an elephant at Franklin Zoo.

Schofield died when 39-year-old African elephant Mila picked her up after she had gone into its enclosure.