A female employee at a Swedish zoo was mauled to death Sunday after being surrounded and then attacked by a pack of wolves, local media reported.

The zookeeper was set upon shortly after entering the wolf enclosure at Kolmarden Zoo in central Sweden around 11:00 a.m., according to news website The Local.

Officials initially were unable to reach the victim.

"You can't just go in to a pack of wolves," Norrkoping's emergency services coordinator, Jan Tengeborg, told the Aftonbladet newspaper. "Police and ambulance staff couldn't get close to the victim until later."

A wolf expert at Sweden's University of Agricultural Sciences told news agency TT that such an incident was unusual, but not very surprising.

"Zoo animals aren't afraid of humans and accidents can happen," Olof Liberg said, noting that wolves are especially dangerous when a zookeeper approaches them alone.