Disturbing New Details Emerge in Deadly Tiger Attack at Zoo
The wildlife park is closed following the horrifying incident.
Stelios Misinas/Reuters
A woman desperately tried to stop a man from entering a tiger enclosure at a zoo in England just moments before he was attacked and killed by the animal on Saturday.
Witnesses to the horrific incident at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park said the woman, who was with her two children, tried to prevent the man from jumping off a bridge into the animal’s pen.
“He overpowered her and jumped off. She seemed really frightened,” Anthony Hunt, who was at the zoo with his girlfriend Scarlet Hogan, told The Telegraph.
Hogan said the tiger went into “stalk mode” after spotting the man approaching it in the enclosure.
“It looked like he was taking selfies. Then when he got on all fours, he started praying. It was the strangest thing ever.”
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Emergency services were dispatched to Doncaster Park around 1:35 p.m. after reports of a tiger attack.
“He had arms wide open ready for the tiger to attack him,” Hogan continued. “It was quite bad. We were just stood there, frozen... the last thing we saw was the tiger’s jaw on his neck.”
A video of the tiger attack has been circulating on social media.
X App/Screenshot
Video of the tiger attacking the man, whose identity has not been confirmed, has spread online.
During the attack, the man clenched both his fists, with his little fingers pointing out. Some suggest he was using the sign for “bad” in Makaton, a communication system used by people with learning disabilities.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park said the Amur tiger, named Altai, will not be euthanized following the tragic incident.
Other British zoos have also experienced fatal tiger attacks. In 2017, keeper Rosa King was killed at Hamerton Zoo Park in Cambridgeshire after a tiger entered the enclosure where she was working.
Four years earlier, keeper Sarah McClay, 24, was fatally mauled at South Lakes Wild Animal Park in Cumbria. The tiger involved in the attack was spared.
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