Zookeeper Stacey Konwiser from the Palm Beach Zoo died Friday afternoon after being attacked by a rare kind of tiger. Konwiser was performing a routine operation inside an enclosure at Palm Beach Zoo yesterday when an endangered 13-year-old Malayan tiger attacked her.
Zoo officials stated that it didn’t appear that Konwiser was doing anything out of the norm as she worked in the enclosure, known as the tiger night house, and she was getting prepared to talk with zoo visitors about the animals in a “Tiger Talk.”
Stacey Konwiser aged 38, whose husband Jeremy also works as a keeper at the Florida zoo, where the West Palm Beach police said the tiger was tranquilized and officers waited until the drugs took effect before they could reach the victim. Later Stacey was taken by helicopter to St Mary’s Medical Center where she died after suffering a “severe bite” wound at about 3 p.m. Now the male tiger is tranquilized on recovering at the zoo.
Palm Beach Zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter stated that Konwiser has worked three years at the zoo and she was very experienced with tigers.
“She loved tigers. You don’t get into this business without the love for the animals and understanding the danger that’s involved even more. I kind of referred to her as a tiger whisperer” Carted added.
Stacey was graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor’s degree in biology and then she received her master’s degree in conservation biology from the University of Queensland in Australia.
Raging tiger or raging people?
The Malayan tigers are a critically endangered subspecies, and the Palm Beach Zoo provides a special program in which guests can pay extra to see the tigers where there are less than 250 left in the world of this subspecies.
Also, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) gave their words on this, but not really good ones.
PETA Foundation Deputy Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet stated that the “…incident is only the latest in a long list of fatal maulings around the world, and that list will continue to grow as long as tigers and other exotic animals are locked in cages and compounds for human amusement”.
Source: Palm Beach Post