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The incident, during which Vardan Grigoryan, a 35-year-old zoo attendant, was injured in a lion attack, was unprecedented , Panorama.am learned from zoo employee Arman Petrosyan who has looked after predators at Yerevan Zoo for 22 years.

Petrosyan said that during this period he has never witnessed animal attacks on the zoo personnel. He added that recently he did not notice any changes in the behavior of Zeus the lion.

“There are no problems with the animal. The zoo attendant just broke safety rules – he approached Zeus too closely, and the lion instinctively reacted,” Petrosyan explained.

The director of Yerevan Zoo Ruben Khachatryan told Panorama.am that the zoo takes into account experience of developed countries when designing animal enclosures in order to reduce the human factor to a minimum. In his words, the same approach will be taken during the construction of new enclosures for lions.