05 December 2023 , 12:46
1148
0
Harrowing footage shows the moment a young woman was dragged away by a tiger before her mother was mauled to death trying to save her.
What appears to have begun as a family row at Badaling Wildlife Park in Beijing, China ended in tragedy after the woman, known only as Ms Zhao, got out of her car to berate her partner in the driver's seat – while inside a Siberian tiger enclosure. Other reports, however, suggested the family simply thought they had left the enclosure where the tigers were kept.
A Siberian tiger quickly pounced on the young woman and can be seen in the footage dragging her off to the right. Her mother, later identified as Ms Zhou, also left the car in a bid to rescue her. A second tiger then attacked, dragging the older woman to her death despite the frantic intervention efforts of park rangers.
Ms Zhao can be seen getting out of the car moments before the tiger appears (YouTube)Badaling's staff were able to rescue Ms Zhao, who was sent to hospital with severe injuries to the neck, but her mother was killed instantly. The park was ordered to suspend all operations by Yangqing Distinct authorities after the incident in July 2016. An investigation later ruled that the incident was not its fault and the park resumed business in November, though self-driving tours are now prohibited.
The surviving daughter has since sued the park for damages in the form of a 1.25 million yuan payout (£141,000) intended to cover Ms Zhou's funeral costs, expenses for her dependents and consolation compensation for other family members.
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
She survived the attack but her mother was killed (YouTube)The 6,000-acre park, near a famous section of the Great Wall of China, allows visitors to drive through enclosures. It is no stranger to serious safety problems. In 2014, a security guard who dared exit his patrol vehicle was fatally injured by a Bengal tiger, and in 2016 a park employee was killed by an elephant.
Siberian tigers are considered by many experts to be the world's largest tiger, with the Bengal tiger ranking second largest. They were listed as critically endangered prior to 2008 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) but later upgraded to endangered, with the IUCN now considering its global population to be stable.
Ms Zhou raced after the tiger but was killed in the process (YouTube)However, the tiger's recovery has been slow due to ongoing poaching pressures, declines in habitat size and quality due to logging and forest fires, falling prey populations and a lack of genetic diversity in the subspecies caused by overhunting.
Thousands of tigers are raised in parks across China but critics insist such breeding programmes do little to aid the recovery of wild populations and sometimes provide cover to illegal trade in animal parts, which undoubtedly contributes toward their endangered status.