Police shot and killed an escaped tiger near Leipzig on Sunday after the animal attacked a man inside a privately owned enclosure on the outskirts of the German city. Officers said they opened fire on the male tiger after arriving quickly at the scene, acting, in their words, to eliminate any further risk to the public.
A 72-year-old man was seriously injured in the attack inside the enclosure, according to police. The local force received the emergency call at around 12:50 local time, or 11:50 BST, and said the tiger was found shortly afterwards by armed officers and shot dead. How the animal escaped remains under investigation, and police said they planned a drone search to make sure the site is fully secure. No other animals have escaped from the facility.
The tiger was one of eight big cats kept at the industrial site near Schkeuditz, according to local media, and the enclosure is believed to be owned by Carmen Zander, the controversial trainer known in Germany as the “Tiger Queen.” Local residents told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur the incident was terrible and worrying, with one saying the animals were not kept in appropriate conditions. District Mayor Thomas Druskat called the incident unthinkable and said the other animals should be relocated.
The case has also revived questions about the way privately owned big cats are kept and sold to the public as spectacle. A website using Zander’s name and nickname advertises what it calls unforgettable and one-of-a-kind tiger petting events near Leipzig, saying visitors can pay to pet the 250kg powerhouses. The site shows pictures of eight tigers, three of which appear to have died in the last nine years.
Peta called on the government to act and said stricter rules needed to be put in place to protect privately-owned animals. For now, police are treating the escape as both a criminal investigation and a public safety failure, and the dead tiger has become the focus of a broader debate over whether animals like this should be kept where families can pay to stand close to them.
