L.A. man critical after tiger mauling

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles-area man mauled by a tiger whose cage he was cleaning at a celebrity's wildlife refuge clung to life Tuesday .

Chris Orr, 40, was cleaning the cage of a 4-year-old male tiger when it attacked him at actress Tippi Hedren's wildlife rescue sanctuary, 40 miles north of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported.

He was airlifted to an undisclosed hospital where he was listed in critical condition from bite wounds, the newspaper said.

Hedren told the newspaper while it was "a terrible, terrible thing that has happened," the rescued animal was not at fault.

"Who knows what happened to this tiger? People have kept them in closets, basements," she said. "It isn't the tiger's fault. It is the fault of the people breeding these animals in the first place that leads them to be here."

Hedron is an activist in lobbying for changes to federal law to crack down on people who keep tigers as pets, along with prohibiting commercial breeding of the animals.