The man in his twenties, an employee of a cleaning company working for the zoo, was seriously injured and had to be hospitalized. He entered Wednesday evening after the zoo was closed to the public “in a prohibited area near a tiger that was in its enclosure”, specifies the police of the county of Collier, where the zoo of the city of Naples is located.
The man had then stuck his arm through an opening in the enclosure and was “petting or feeding the animal”, according to initial police reports, when the tiger grabbed him. After kicking the enclosure fence in an attempt to get the cat to let go, the first police officer on the scene shot the tiger, killing the 8-year-old male named Eko.