Copenhagenc—A man was killed by tigers at a zoo on Wednesday after he scaled a fence and crossed a moat to get into their enclosure in the Danish capital, police said.
The 21-year-old Afghan-born man was savaged by three Siberian tigers after he broke into Copenhagen Zoo.
Police say the man broke into the zoo between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tuesday night, but they still don’t know the exact time of death, according to the Danish newspaper Politiken.
He was dead when staff arrived for work.
“We received an emergency call at about 7:30 a.m. that a person had been found lying in the tiger pen and that three tigers were surrounding that person,” police Superintendent Lars Borg told Reuters.
Borg told Politiken that police has a fairly good idea of how the man got into the zoo, but couldn’t say what exactly he was doing there.
Police were trying to piece together the man’s movements inside the zoo, but haven’t had any luck with security cameras. There were no surveillance cameras at the tiger enclosure.
Police now know that the man was bitten in his thigh, chest, groin, face and throat, and speculate it was the bite to the throat that killed him.
The man was granted Danish citizenship last month and his family has identified him, Borg said. Police declined to release his name.
Borg said the man appeared to have entered the tiger area late Tuesday from a low wall surrounding the den and then ended up in the moat inside the enclosure.
“He has been in the water and the animals must have seen that and attacked him,” Borg said. “He was killed in the water.”
The man only had his old residence permit and keys to his Copenhagen apartment on him, Borg said.
Police said the man may have entered the enclosure as a way of committing suicide. “Out of respect for next of kin we’re won’t get into that subject,” said Borg, who is now awaiting the result of the autopsy.
The death of the man and the late opening of the zoo, as well as rain, did not deter visitors. Several people interviewed did, however, say they might avoid the tiger exhibit today.
Psychologists have been called to the zoo to talk to staff who found the body, the zoo’s chief executive Steffen Straede said.
Straede was visibly shaken when interviewed by Danish TV and called the death, “deeply tragic.” He said his first priority was making sure his staff and the animals were taken care of. He added that there are emergency plans in place for this kind of occurrence and that staff followed the plan perfectly.
Straede said it was the first time in the zoo’s 152-year history that such an incident has occurred, and there were no plans to reassess its security or to put the tigers down.
Asked how anyone could have gotten into the tiger exhibit, he said, “It’s a bit like jumping in front of a train. If you want to do it, you can do it.”