Posted on 02/23/2007 1:29:04 PM PST by decimon
A six-year-old girl has been killed by a tiger at a zoo in Kunming in south-western China's Yunnan province.
The girl was posing for photographs with the tiger when it was startled by camera flashes and pulled the girl's head into its mouth, state media said.
Staff beat the tiger until it released the girl, but she had suffered a crushed skull and died in hospital.
The zoo has stopped allowing visitors to pose with its tigers for a charge of $2 (£1), Xinhua news agency said.
The girl was identified as Rui Xin. Her mother was bitten on the arm while trying to rescue her.
A local newspaper said the zoo had been charging visitors for the opportunity to pose with the tiger since May 2005.
Tigers do what tigers do.
Why not pose far enough away from the cage to be out of harm's way? Use a long lens and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. That's how they shoot those cliche scenes in movies where the hero throws himself in the air as the big explosion goes off.
Did we learn nothing from Sigfried & Roy?...........
We don't seem to learn at all.
Very sad. I heard this on the radio this morning and from the way the guy (Bill Handel) described it, I thought the tiger had bit the girl's head off and decapitated her! That left a horrible vision in my head, though the one described here isn't much different. :(
No, "crushed skull" shouldn't be a descriptor for a child.
Tigers (Panthera tigris) are mammals of the Felidae family and one of four "big cats" in the Panthera genus. They are apex predators and the largest feline species in the world....
The Wikipedia goes on to define "apex predator" in a way that can be read as top of the food chain in his neck of the woods.
Do not get in the cage with the tiger.
Message ends.
There will be dozens of posts pointing out the folly of getting this close to a wild animal but we have congress critters who do the very same thing when it comes to the Islamofascists!
bad putty tat......
But the government zoo people led us to believe it was safe! Poor child.
They charged for posing with the tigers so it could be a private zoo. I suspect there is nothing you can't buy in China at this point in time.
Old Chinese saying: "Qi hu nan xia." When you ride the tiger, it's hard to get off.
My Kittie cats strip a gear every day or so and what was a purring kitten is a deadly attack machine. If they weighed 200 pounds I'd be dead instead of just unattaching their various teeth and claws from my arm.
I would say that's the 21st Century love that dare not speak its name ;-)
There's a video on YouTube of a tiger killing a 16 foot long crocodile. You can only imagine what it would do to a little girl.
Thought the Tiger head grip only happened in Las Vegas..
Could have been this one at the Kunming Zoo!
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/17/content_485581.htm
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