Man dies after entering tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, as Amy Lewis reports. <\/p>\n
A man has died after suffering serious injuries in a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.<\/p>\n
Videos shared online appear to show the male being attacked by the big cat in Doncaster at around 1.30pm on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the efforts of medical personnel, he was pronounced dead at the scene and his family have since been informed, South Yorkshire Police said. <\/p>\n
According to local media, eyewitnesses said a black screen has been erected around the tiger enclosure while there were reports of \u201cfive shots fired\u201d shortly before the evacuation.<\/p>\n
These sounds were believed to be gas canister and tranquilliser darts, The Star newspaper added.South Yorkshire Police said: \u201cAt 1.35pm today Saturday, October 10 we received reports of a man entering a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tiger subsequently attacked the man, resulting in serious injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmergency services attended and sadly, despite the best efforts of medical personnel, the man was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe man\u2019s family is aware and is being supported by specialist officers. Our thoughts are with them at this distressing time.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegarding rumours surrounding the condition of the tiger, the animal was uninjured and remained in the enclosure following the incident and there is no wider risk to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing the incident, Yorkshire Wildlife Park was evacuated and officers remain on scene carrying out inquiries. We are aware of videos circulating online and we would encourage people not to share this footage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man died at the scene, South Yorkshire Police said Credit: Alamy\/PA<\/p>\n
Karmelle Pelham, 39, of Worksop, had been at the park celebrating her nephew\u2019s second birthday with family.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
She told ITV News: \u201cWe had been in the tiger enclosure minutes before but luckily moved on and we heard what sounded like two gun shots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShortly after that a helicopter started circling and there was another couple of gunshots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were in the lemur enclosure and asked to leave as the keepers said they couldn\u2019t keep us safe if we were there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we were leaving, things seemed a bit more tense and the keepers were starting to ask people to move on and make their way to the exit and the park would be closing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we made our way out through the park, there was police presence and keepers making sure people swiftly made their way out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tiger enclosed had black tarpaulin covering the entrance and two police officers were inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we left there was a huge team of detectives on their way over to the enclosure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lady in front of my Auntie was heard saying to a keeper that she has been there on the scene and witnessed the man jumping into the tiger\u2019s enclosure and asked if they would like a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we left, we stood and watched the air ambulance leave without any casualties, and so we assumed everything was fine.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I\u2019m] very sad to hear what happened and so glad the animal was unharmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff were extremely professional and didn\u2019t create panic or give us any reason to worry at all. It was handled very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visitors can view the tigers from a raised walkway. Credit: Yorkshire Wildlife Park<\/p>\n
Yorkshire Wildlife Park bosses said: \u201cWe can confirm that a serious incident has occurred today at the tiger enclosure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur emergency response procedures were immediately activated, and emergency services are currently attending the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working closely with the authorities to ascertain exactly what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety and wellbeing of our visitors, staff and animals remain our highest priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe park is now closed and will remain closed tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yorkshire Air Ambulance said: \u201cWe can confirm that Yorkshire Air Ambulance was dispatched to an incident at Yorkshire Wildlife Park today (Saturday 10 October), alongside other ambulance resources.<\/p>\n
“At this stage, we are unable to provide any further details.\u201d<\/p>\n
The park was officially opened in April 2009.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Land of the Tigers opened which allows visitors to view the cats from a 300 meter-long raised walkway above the enclosure. <\/p>\n
The two-acre complex is home to two Amur tigers – Altai and Tschuna. More commonly known as Siberian Tigers, they are the largest big cats in the world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man dies after entering tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, as Amy Lewis reports. A man has died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-798689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}