The eight-year-old Malaysian tiger Eko was still holding the cleaner’s arm in his mouth when an officer rushed at him. The policeman tried to release the cleaner and was apparently forced to shoot the tiger.
The cleaner may have put his arm through the gate of Echo’s house to pet him or feed him. The accident happened after closing time, in a place where the cleaner was not allowed to attend.
Police said the employee was a member of an outside cleaning service that the zoo works with, among other things, to clean toilets and the souvenir shop, not animal enclosures. The tiger grabbed the cleaner’s arm and pulled it into his enclosure after the man, in his twenties, crossed the first fence barrier and then extended his arm through the second fence to the animal. The American was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
When the zoo welcomed Echo in 2020, the Malaysian tiger was proudly called the “Great Ambassador of Its Species”. Malaysian tigers are in critical danger of extinction. Less than 200 felids still live in the wild, according to the WWF.
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