Girl, 8, is seriously injured by a wolf inside an enclosure during a children's event at a German wildlife park

An eight-year-old girl was mauled by a wolf in the Arctic wolf enclosure at Johannismühle Wildlife Park in Baruth/Mark, Brandenburg, south of Berlin. A zookeeper intervened to stop two other girls from suffering the same fate. The victim sustained severe head injuries and was airlifted to a trauma centre in Marzahn. The attack took place before the park's 10am opening, apparently during a special 'animal keeper' experience that allows children to feed wolves.

Johannismühle, which runs small-group wolf-feeding tours, has closed until 2 November while police carry out their investigation.

The incident is the third serious European wildlife park attack in recent weeks — a Dutch zookeeper died after being mauled by a leopard, and a man was killed by a tiger at Yorkshire Wildlife Park this month.

Earlier this year a wolf attacked a woman in a Hamburg shopping area, in what is believed to have been the first wild wolf attack on German soil since the animals re-established their presence in the country in 1998.