MANILA, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee said "it was an accident" that a tiger was injured during the filming of his Academy Award-winning film "Life of Pi."
An email obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, written by American Human Association monitor Gina Johnson, said a tiger named King nearly drowned during the filming of a scene in the movie, which heavily features a tiger character named Richard Parker.
"This one take with him just went really bad, and he got lost trying to swim to the side ... damn near drowned," Johnson wrote April 7, 2011.
Lee -- who won a directing Oscar for the film, which took four Oscars overall -- confirmed the tiger was involved in an incident during shooting but said it received proper medical care.
"It was an accident," he said in the Philippines, where he was taking part in a film exchange, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported. "The crew worked hard to rescue the tiger and then showed him a lot of care, giving him five-star treatment."
The AHA said Johnson is no longer an employee at the organization and most likely overstated the injury to the tiger.
Johnson "probably overreacted. Was it a close call? What is indisputable was that no harm came to King. Could you argue he had a moment? But he continued to work," said Dr. S. Kwane Stewart, a veterinarian and national director for the AHA's No Animals Were Harmed program.
