Lion Attack: Intern Killed By Cat, Father Had Premonition

An African lion at a big cat sanctuary in California killed 24-year old Dianna Hanson on Wednesday. The father of the young intern said he always feared something bad would happen to her. Hanson was only two months into her internship at the Cat Haven in Dunlap, a small Fresno County town near King's Canyon National Park.

Hanson's father, Paul told ABC News, "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."

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According to officials Hanson was attacked inside the cage of a 4-year-old male named Cous Cous at 12:30 p.m. It's still unclear as to why Hanson was even in the cage. A Fresno County sheriff's deputy shot Cous Cous less than 30 minutes after Hanson entered the cage.

"The lion was shot and killed per our safety protocols," Dale Anderson, founder and executive director of Project Survival Cat Haven, said Wednesday.

Hanson's father is more preoccupied with what his daughter was doing in the cage in the first place. She had always made it clear only the owners were allowed inside.

The sanctuary will be closed indefinitely while wildlife officials perform a necropsy on Cous Cous, to determine what could have caused the lion [who's appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show] to attack the familiar intern.