Jan. 30 (UPI) — A zoo in China was evacuated and closed Sunday after a man scaling a wall fell into a tiger enclosure and was mauled to death.
Officials at the Youngor Wildlife Park in Ningbo spent an hour Sunday rescuing a man who fell into the tiger enclosure while scaling the zoo’s wall in an attempt to avoid paying the admission fee. One tiger was killed after the man was pulled from the enclosure, and the man was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.
The man, identified by park officials as Zhang, had been visiting the park with his wife and child, and scaled the wall with another man, identified as Li, whose children had also come to the zoo — all of whom watched the mauling with other screaming visitors to the zoo.
“Zhang and Li climbed over a three-meter wall from the northwest side of the zoo, ignoring warning signs along the wire fence, before scaling over another three-meter into the tiger enclosure,” Youngor Wildlife Park officials said in a statement. “Zhang entered the pen. Li did not.”
One tiger grabbed the man by the neck, dragging him toward some trees where two other tigers were standing and would not let him get away.
“I saw the tiger mauling the person, whose face was covered with blood,” one witness reported. “Every time he sat up, the tiger pushed him down again.”
Eventually, the tigers were scared away from the man using firecrackers and water, allowing workers to rescue the man, who was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. One of the tigers was later shot dead by wildlife officials following the attack.
