A man in his mid-20s, whose name authorities have withheld at the family’s request, entered a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, UK, on Saturday, October 10.
The incident took place at the Land of the Tigers attraction, a 2-acre reserve for endangered Amur (Siberian) tigers featuring a 300-meter-long raised wooden walkway.
Highlights
- A man was fatally mauled by a tiger after jumping into its enclosure at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in the UK.
- Following the incident, eyewitnesses recalled the man’s “strange” behavior in the moments leading up to the attack.
- The wildlife park revealed the fate of the tiger that attacked the man amid calls from some netizens to put it down.
Onlookers saw the tiger, named Altai, “stalk” the man and maul him, even as he seemed to beg the animal for mercy.
Despite the park’s rangers and emergency responders’ best attempts, the man succumbed to his injuries on the spot.
Now, new eyewitness accounts have shed light on startling details from the moments before the man made his fateful jump into the enclosure.
New witness accounts revealed that a mother of two tried to pull the man back before he jumped into the enclosure
Anthony Hunt and Scarlet Hogan, a couple, were by the tiger enclosure as the horrifying event unfolded and recalled their experience in an interview with The Telegraph.
The two had seen the man dancing “erratically” earlier in the day while parking their car, but thought nothing of it.
They saw him again at the Land of the Tigers after visiting the penguins and the cheetahs.
Hunt, a recent physiotherapy graduate, said he noticed a woman visiting with her two kids try to pull the man back as he tried to jump over the enclosure perimeter.
“He overpowered her and jumped off. She seemed really frightened,” Hunt said. “We spoke to her after, and she was like, ‘I tried to pull him back,’ but I guess she didn’t want to risk her own life as well.”
The mother of two also told him the man was “saying something religious” before jumping.
The man started “praying” as the tiger bit into him, according to eyewitnesses
Hogan, a pharmacy worker, told The Telegraph that she was taking pictures of Altai looking directly at them when she realized that a visitor had breached the enclosure.
“We tracked the tiger’s eyes, and we saw [the man] in the corner just walking across the enclosure,” she said. “The tiger got alerted. He went into stalk mode. The tiger came flying off the ledge and approached him.”
“The man started praying to the tiger, bowing down to it — the tiger looked a bit confused. Up until he got attacked, it was like he was in a trance, not in reality at all.”
“It looked like he was taking selfies,” Hogan recollected what the man was doing seconds before the tiger attacked. “Then when he got on all fours, he started praying. It was the strangest thing ever.”
“He had arms wide open, ready for the tiger to attack him. It was quite bad. We were just standing there, frozen... the last thing we saw was the tiger’s jaw on his neck.”
Hunt and Hogan heard the firearms discharged by the park rangers, who aimed at the ground to scare the animal away, but it was already too late for the man. The couple was later told by the cops that the man had perished despite life-saving measures undertaken by the EMTs.
The man was alone and asked a woman to take his picture before making the fatal decision
Many visitors have posted videos of the gruesome incident online, but one clip from seconds before the attack shows the tiger lying in the shade of a tree, relaxing on the ground.
Other clips show the tiger approaching the man from behind and grabbing the back of his T-shirt near the neckline to lift him off the ground. Then the animal lurches toward the man’s right shoulder and swipes its paw at his right side.
The man can be heard crying “no, no” and screaming “stop” as he pointed a finger at the tiger and made a gesture, clenching both fists and sticking out his little fingers.
Some viewers have speculated that this was the sign for “bad” in Makaton, a communication system used by people with learning disabilities, while others thought the man had hearing troubles.
Marie Miller, a visitor at the park, wrote in a Facebook post that she saw the man “dancing” and “happily enjoying” seeing the tiger alone, with his AirPods on, and asked a “total stranger” to take a photo of him with the tiger in the background.
Del Taylor, another visitor, told The Sun that the man approached her to take a picture: “He was completely alone. At first he was dancing on the bridge overlooking the enclosure. He ended up standing next to me.”
The wildlife park authorities have shared their decision about the future of the tiger that attacked
The videos of the incident quickly went viral, drawing millions of views and comments. Most blamed the man for what happened to him, but a few claimed that the park authorities should have fired at the tiger to save the man’s life.
“I have no sympathy for crazy f**ks who knowingly put themselves in dangerous situations,” one user said. Another wrote, “The safety barrier is not idiot proof.”
“They should have s**t the tiger instead of watching a man get mauled to d**th,” another argued. A fourth said, “They better not put the tiger down for this.”
On Sunday, October 11, the Yorkshire Wildlife Park stated that Altai was “safe and well” and would not be euthanized because of the incident. The park, however, would be closed for the day, and the staff who handled the matter would receive specialist support.
Charlotte Pywell, an animal ranger at the park, said, “I don’t know who the guy was or what made him jump. It was not the tiger’s fault at all. It was just something else to play with. The keepers are all distraught.”
The City of Doncaster Council has launched a health and safety investigation into the matter, in line with statutory regulations.
"The tiger is at zero fault," one user weighed in
