Family of intern killed by lion calls death tragic accident

Family members of the young woman killed in a lion attack at a Central California animal park say they believe no rules were broken and the volunteer worker's death was a tragic accident.

Dianna Hanson was inside a 350-pound African lion's cage when it attacked on Wednesday

Lion was shot dead after police were unable to lure animal away from its victim

Investigation underway into why she was inside the lion's enclosure

Her boyfriend was the one to find her, as animal expert hints that maybe she was trying to show off for her boyfriend who was visiting from Italy

Killer lion featured on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show when it was a cub

Investigators think the 350-pound male African lion lifted the door of a partially closed feeding cage with its paw and killed 24-year-old Dianna Hanson as she cleaned a bigger enclosure area Wednesday, Fresno County Coroner David Hadden has said.
Hanson died immediately from a broken neck, according to the coroner's autopsy report. Other injuries were sustained after her death, the report states.
Family members say they're relieved the young woman was killed instantly when the lion swiped or lunged at her at Cat Haven, a 100-acre private zoo run by the nonprofit group Project Survival.
"We're thankful to know she didn't suffer," Hanson's brother, Paul R. Hanson, told The Associated Press.
Family members said Friday they don't believe it was a mauling, but rather a lion's rough play that turned tragic.
"It sounds like it was an accident. Maybe the latch had not been completely closed. ... You know, house cats are smart, they can open doors," Paul Hanson said. "It wasn't a vicious attack ... because you would expect severe lacerations and biting on the neck and that was not the case."
Paul Hanson and his wife Tiffany Windle-Hanson, who was the victim's college roommate, believe the facility followed safety protocols.
"It was just a tragic accident," Windle-Hanson said.
Investigators were focusing on the cage door that the 5-year-old animal managed to escape through to reach the volunteer intern.
"The lion had been fed, the young woman was cleaning the large enclosure, and the lion was in the small cage," Hadden said. "The gate of the cage was partially open, which allowed the lion called Cous Cous to lift it up with his paw."

Hadden said the lion then ran at Hanson.
The coroner said Hanson was talking with a co-worker on a cellphone in the moments before she was killed. The co-worker became concerned when the conversation ended abruptly and Hanson failed to call back. The co-worker then called authorities when she went to check on Hanson.
Family members say Hanson was actually using a walkie-talkie, which they understood to be the policy at the animal park.
"She wasn't distracted, she wasn't like that," Windle-Hanson said. "It's a safety protocol to have walkie-talkies there, which is important in case a situation like this occurs."
Sheriff's deputies shot Cous Cous after the animal couldn't be coaxed away from Hanson's body.
Hanson had been working for two months as an intern at Cat Haven.
 Her father, Paul Hanson, described his daughter as a "fearless" lover of big cats and said her goal was to work with the animals at an accredited zoo. She died doing what she loves, he said.
Hanson's Facebook page is plastered with photos of her petting tigers and other big cats. She told her father she was frustrated that Cat Haven did not allow direct contact with animals.
"Dianna had a tremendous respect for big cats. It's something she wanted to do since she was 3 years old," said Dianna Hanson's aunt, Karen Postema, who lives in Laurel, Mont.
"She was a vivacious, terrific kid, and we are heartbroken about her death," she said. "But we wanted people to know that she loved what she was doing, and we don't want this accident to cast dispersions on her character or hurt the program at Cat Haven."
Dale Anderson, the owner of the zoo, said safety protocols were in place but he would not discuss them because they are a part of the law enforcement investigation.
Anderson said he's the only person allowed in the enclosure when lions are present.
"We want to assure the community that we have followed all safety protocols," Anderson said. "We have been incident-free since 1998."
He said the facility will reopen to the public Sunday.
When the attack occurred, Anderson said he and two other Cat Haven workers had left to take a cheetah to exhibit at a school. Hanson and another worker remained at the facility.
Whether Hanson was performing a function that placed her in danger is being investigated b
Cal-OSHA, which also is trying to determine if employees were properly instructed about potential danger, as required.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which enforces the federal Animal Welfare Act, is also looking to understand why the lion turned on the intern.
USDA inspectors conduct multiple unannounced inspections of Cat Haven every year and never had found a violation, Sacks said. Federal regulations pertain only to animal treatment.
Cat Haven breeds and keeps lions, tigers, jaguars, lynx and other exotic cats and takes them out for public appearances. There are 29 wild cats left at the park, including one female lion that lived with Cous Cous in the same enclosure.
On Friday, Hanson's family announced that a fund has been set up in her memory and urged people to donate to the wildlife organizations she loved, including Cat Haven.

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The father of 24-year-old intern Dianna Hanson is now questioning why his daughter was even allowed into the lion's cage on the day that she died as only the owners of the sanctuary are typically allowed to be that close to the deadly animals.
'How she ever got inside the cage and why she would be inside the cage because I thought-- she made it real clear that they don't let anybody in the cage except the owner,' her father Paul Hanson said.
Dianna was volunteering at Cat Haven sanctuary in Dunlap, California and was mauled to death on Wednesday afternoon when she was in a 4-year-old lion's cage, even though she was not supposed to be inside.

Her father said that while his daughter wasn't afraid of working with big animals, he always feared the worst.
'Anybody who works with cats knows that they are wild animals and they can turn even on people closest to them. So I always had this horrible, nagging premonition that I would get a call like this,' Mr Hanson said to ABC News hours after his daughter was killed in a California animal reserve.

Predator: Cous Cous is the 4-year-old, 350-pound lion who killed Hanson and then was shot

The investigation is ongoing about why she was in the enclosure even though she had just been volunteering for the facility for two months.
The person that found her was a young man from Italy who identified himself as Dianna's boyfriend.
'I always worried about her working with lions and jaguars and bobcats. But they were always very careful. She must be in shock. I just want to go to her,' he told The Los Angeles Times.
His presence has led to speculation among animal experts that maybe that is a reason why she would overlook the facility's protocols and go into the cage by herself.
'Its hard to say what she was doing in that cage, because she was by herself and from what I read this morning, early this morning hours is that her boyfriend or someone was there. You and I both know that sometimes we do something and we're trying not to impress somebody but to show somebody what we can do,' zoo expert Jack Hanna told ABC.
'My understanding is that their protocol is to have two or three people in there and they do feed the cat in a different enclosure so why would she get the key and go in there?
This is not the first time that the male lion, named Cous Cous, has made headlines, as he was featured on a segment of Ellen DeGeneres' talk show when he was only a cub.
A handler brought the then-3-month-old cub onto the show and the comedian cuddled with it as they both warned about the dangers of keeping such animals as pets since they are dangerous.
During his brief statement to the press, the owner of the sanctuary did not say why Dianna, who had only been working at Cat Haven for two months, was allowed into the animal's cage.

He refused to take questions from reporters.
'Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family at this critical time,' said Mr Anderson.
Even though the local sheriff said that the animal sanctuary has a very good reputation with no prior security incidents, that will not stop the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the young woman's death.
'She should have never been in the enclosure with him,' Nicole Paquette of the Humane Society said to The Times.
'These are big cats that are extremely dangerous, and they placed a volunteer in the actual cage with a wild animal. That should have never happened.'
'Dianna really loved her six-month month internship at Cat Haven,' Her father, Paul Hanson, wrote on Facebook.
'She and I drove down there from Seattle on January 1 & 2. She was so excited at working in Cat Haven and living in California. Once there, she gave me the tour and showed me all the big cats there with which she would be working.'

Mr Hanson said his daughter had loved lions and tigers since she was a little girl.
While studying at WWU he says she cared for a few animals owned by a family living near the campus, King5 reports.

Investigators were trying to determine why Ms Hanson was inside the enclosure and what might have provoked the attack, Fresno County sheriff's Sgt. Greg Collins said.

Fresno County Emergency Medical Services say they received a call to the sanctuary around 12.32pm on Wednesday but by 12.52 the call was cancelled because the victim had already died, the Fresno Bee reports.

The site is about 45 miles east of Fresno in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Since the property opened in 1993, it has housed numerous big cats, including tigers, leopards and other exotic species.

'This facility has a very good history,' Lt. Tony Spada of state Fish & Wildlife told the Fresno Bee. 'In this case, someone just got too close.'

The sanctuary boasts more intimate relationships with their cats, with videos showing their handlers interacting one-on-one with the animals inside their cages.
'We started the Cat Haven with the idea that giving people a better experience with cats, and hopefully they become interested when they see them and hear them and hopefully they'll want to take an active role in conservation for cats in the wild,' said Cat Haven's founder Dale Anderson speaking to Fox News in February.
The sanctuary is permitted to house exotic animals by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and is regulated as a zoo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Results of the last 13 inspections by the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service show no violations dating back to March 2010. The most recent inspection was Feb. 4, USDA records show.
Despite state regulations that require annual inspections, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife most recently inspected the facility in January 2011.
'We have to do the best we can with the resources we're provided,' said department spokeswoman Jordan Traverso.
The inspector's written comments were 'facility in good condition.' The inspector checked gates, enclosures, water supplies, drainage, cleanliness, ventilation and the general health of the animals.
Department spokeswoman Janice Mackey said she was unaware if any state regulations would prohibit an employee from entering an exotic animal's enclosure.
She said each species is identified on the permit, and the animals must be used for scientific or educational purposes only.
'We don't allow them to be used as pets,' Mackey said.

Officials at another big cat sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Fla., told The Associated Press last year that at least 21 people, including five children, have been killed and 246 mauled by exotic cats since 1990. Over that period, 254 cats escaped and 143 were killed.
Tatiana, a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo, was killed by police after jumping out of its enclosure and fatally mauling a 17-year-old boy and injuring two other people in 2007.
Cat Haven has housed Bengal tigers, Siberian lynx, caracals, jaguars and leopards of various types as well as bobcats native to the area. Anderson described the private zoo several years ago as one of a handful of facilities across the U.S. that has all of the big cat species in one place.
The facility's website says it promotes conservation and preservation of wild cats in their native habitats and offers visitors tours and educational outreach.
Anderson said Project Survival would investigate to see if the intern and the other worker who was on-site followed the group's protocols.
'We take every precaution to ensure the safety of our staff, animals and guests,' he said in a written statement.