For the first time in the history of the National Zoological Park in the Capital a man died after being attacked by an animal. The Delhi zoo, on Tuesday, was confronted with a hair-raising episode when a white tiger mauled a man to death. Before this, nearly a decade ago, a similar incident had happened at the Delhi Zoo when an inebriated man entered the enclosure of a lioness. But luckily for him, the lioness spared his life, informed the zoo officials on Tuesday.
“Almost 10 years ago, a similar incident had happened. The man was in an inebriated state and had jumped in front of a lioness. The lioness fortunately spared his life,” said an official at the National Zoological Park. The officials also added that Tuesday’s incident was the first time when a person died after being attacked by a zoo animal.
The official said that the lioness had keenly noticed the visitor, who could have fallen prey to her, inside her enclosed area, but had not attacked him. “All security measures were adopted and the lioness was somehow lured into her cage by us,” said the official. After being rescued, the man had climbed a tree in fear. He came down after the zoo officials enticed him to.
Earlier too many such cases have been reported from Indian zoos, including one in July 2012, when a 32-year-old man was mauled and seriously injured by a tiger after he sneaked into its enclosure at the Jharkhand zoo. In August 2009, an inebriated visitor to the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad who tried to feed a white tiger grass, ended up at Osmania General Hospital with a severely mauled arm. In December 2007, two tigers at the Guwahati zoo mauled a visitor who put his hand into the enclosure to get a close-up
photograph. The man lost his left arm and died later. In December 2000, panic gripped the Alipore zoo in Kolkata after a tiger killed a youth who ventured into the open-air enclosure for big cats by scaling the high wall surrounding it. We may be preaching to the choir, but here’s something to remember next time you visit a zoo: Just because the animals are held captive in cages does not make them your household pet. Some are natural born killers.