LONDON -- A man who climbed a high fence to feed the lions at the London Zoo was seriously mauled Thursday by one of the animals as a family with young children looked on in horror, a zoo official said.
The man climbed the fence, threw what appeared to be dead chickens or turkeys to the lions and then sat down in their enclosure and refused to leave when warned by zookeepers just before a male lion turned on him, said the zoo's chief executive Jo Gipps.
'When asked to leave the enclosure urgently by one of my staff he said he wouldn't,' Gipps said. 'He was then set upon by one of the lions and was quite badly injured.'
Zookeepers fired one shot into the air and set off fire extinguishers to drive the lions into their nighttime enclosure so paramedics could reach the man, who was airlifted to a hospital with a serious chest wound.
Kate Coleman, who was visiting the zoo with her husband and two small children, told the British Broadcasting Corp. the man seemed calm before the attack.
'The lion just knocked him down,' Coleman said. 'The lion had his paws on top of him and then put his mouth around his waist and sort of shook him.'
Gipps said the intruder was very determined and had climbed a fence to enter the zoo, crossed a wide planted area and then climbed another 15-20 foot fence to get into the lion enclosure.
He said it was the first incident of its kind at the London Zoo in Regent Park in about 35 years, and added that an investigation would be launched into security measures for the dangerous animal enclosures at the zoo.
