[Jagwa]

A 20-year-old man broke into the Chilean zoo's lion enclosure, took off his clothes and jumped into the middle of the pen on Saturday.

Once inside the Santiago zoo's enclosure, the lion's reportedly began pouncing on him and started to "play" with him horrifying the zoo's visitors witnessing the attack.

The man was being mauled by the lions and zookeepers intervened by killing the two lions in order to save his life.

He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and was said to be in a grave condition.

Director Alejandra Montalba of Santiago's Metropolitan Zoo told local media the park was crowded with visitors at the time of the attack.

"The zoo has an established protocol because people's lives are very important to us," said Montalba, adding that there were no fast-acting tranquillisers available to stop the lions from mauling the man.

She said she was "deeply affected" by the deaths of the two lions, a male and a female.

An apparent suicide note was found in the man's clothing, said Metropolitan Park director Mauricio Fabry.

Witness Cynthia Vasquez, told Chilean radio station Bio Bio that the man made religious proclamations before the lions began to play with him.

"He entered the enclosure from above and the lions started to play with him, and then after they attacked him,’ Ms Vasquez said.

She also said the man was "shouting things about Jesus."

Ms Vasquez said security personal threw water over the lions and evacuated the people before firing shots.

Another witness said: "There were a lot of children there, and parents covered their eyes while it was going on."

Source inc video & pictures as I can't resize them at the moment;
https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/31...o-chilean-zoo/

[winvens]

So in other words: attention-seeker enters lion enclosure, lions defend their territory, keepers save moron's life by killing the cats because the zoo is too cheap to have tranquilizer darts on hand.

[Susan]

Shame for the lions, but I can understand why they were shot by security in the heat of the moment. There's always going to be these types of people, the suicidal ones that want to go out in a blaze of glory, either taking others with them, or finding some other way to get their name out there to show how much they hate the world. How do these people not get spotted as having serious mental issues beforehand?

[Meridian]

A few pics (can only do one at a time)

[Meridian]

.

[Meridian]

[commondenom]

pity....probably would've been the best meal they'd had in ages....plus they got to hunt which is what big cats do

[Jagwa]

Originally Posted by Meridian ↗

Thanks buddy. I couldn't do it for some reason, they kept appearing too large and then tinypic was being a bitch.

[TheFallOfTroyML]

poor lions

[Steve]

Like most I feel sorry for the lions, they were just doing what comes naturally. It's always the way isn't it, we incarcerate the lions then we kill them when some deranged fool decides he wants to go and play with the cute kittehs. I do get that they had to be shot it just doesn't seem fair...