Nature

Horrific Video Shows Man Mauled By A Tiger To Death

Leon Lamb
First Posted: Feb 02, 2017 05:17 AM EST

A man was mauled by a tiger after his attempt to spare himself from paying the zoo's entrance ticket in China.

Metro UK reported that a man was mauled by a tiger to death after climbing over a fence at Youngor Zoo in Ningbo City, China. The horrifying incident was captured in a mobile phone video showing the man, identified with his surname Zhang, being dragged around by a Siberian tiger within the enclosure.

Despite his attempts to kick other tigers away, onlookers were screaming as the predator refuses to let him go. The final part of the clip shows the tiger biting the motionless man on his neck, with two other big cats watching nearby.

With the use of firecrackers, wildlife park employees scared the big cats away to retrieve Zhang's body. One of the tigers was shot dead although it was not clear if it was the one that mauled the man.

Authorities said that it took more than an hour for park employees to recover Zhang's body. They tried to rush him to a hospital but medics pronounced him dead on arrival.

According to reports, Zhang, in his 40's, was spending the Chinese New Year holiday with his family and friends at Youngor Zoo, located in East China's Zhejiang Province. He and his friend reportedly climbed the 3-meter fence to escape the zoo's 130-RMB fee (about $123) and ended up landing inside the tigers' enclosure.

"Every year, we see that caging wild animals often brings tragedy to both them and humans-yet we still fail to learn from incidents like this," Danny Prater wrote on the People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA) website in response to the tragedy. "Captivity doesn't extinguish predators' basic instincts, and denying them the opportunity to engage in the activities that give their lives meaning is torment for them. We can no longer act surprised when captive animals lash out at humans who force their way into close contact with them."

See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone

More on SCIENCEwr