A man died Saturday after he entered the tiger enclosure at a wildlife park in northern England and was attacked by one of the animals, police said.
Emergency medical personnel responded to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park near the city of Doncaster after the incident was reported at about 1:35 p.m., but the victim died at the scene, South Yorkshire Police said in a statement.
The tiger was not injured and remained inside the enclosure during the incident, the force said.
«He climbed up onto the barriers onto like a metal bar and, next thing you know, he just jumped in and then he, like, crawled towards in front of the tiger, where the tiger is perched, and just lay there,» witness Ella Ford said. «We’ve seen the tiger get down and come over to him and, obviously, grab onto him and then he was shouting for help.»
The wildlife park was evacuated after the attack and officers remained at the scene Saturday night as they investigated.
«We are working closely with the authorities to ascertain exactly what happened,» the wildlife park said in a statement posted on its website.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park began operations in 2009, with its «Land of the Tigers» attraction opening in 2011.
The attraction is a purpose-built 2-acre reserve for endangered Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers. The enclosure includes a 300-meter raised walkway that allows visitors to watch the big cats roam through woodlands and grasslands or play in a waterfall pool, the park says on its website.
Visitors to several zoos and wildlife parks around the world have tried to enter tiger enclosures. A woman was caught in 2024 jumping over a fence and taunting a tiger at the Cohanzick Zoo in New Jersey. In 2016, a zookeeper was fatally attacked by a Malayan tiger at a Florida zoo when she entered the enclosure for the tigers’ night house, a medical examiner’s investigation found.
Several years earlier, in 2012, a man jumped from an area near the monorail in the Bronx Zoo over two fences, including an electrified one, in one bound to get into the tiger enclosure, police said. He was severely injured in what appeared to be a suicide attempt, police said.
