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A zoo keeper died after being maimed by a rare white tiger in his zoo in southwestern Japan.
Akira Furusho was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital on Monday night after apparently being attacked by one of four white tigers detained at Hirakawa Zoo in Kagoshima City, local media reported.
The 40-year-old man was found collapsed and bleeding from a colleague's neck in the tiger enclosure just after the zoo closed for the day, according to Kyodo News.
The tiger supposed to be responsible for the attack had been calmed with a tranquilizer pistol at the time of the arrival of the rescuers and the police. There was no immediate word on his condition.
Police opened an investigation into the care of white tigers at the public-run zoo, opened in 1972.
The attack against Furusho was the second involving a zoo employee in Japan this year.
In March, a worker from the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo was injured when a gorilla bit her right arm. The attack occurred while she was escorting the gorilla from her area of public exposure to her living space, reports reported, which led to an investigation into how which she and the animal had come into contact so close.
Rosa King, zookeeper at Zoo Park in Hamerton, Cambridgeshire, England, was killed in May 2017 after entering a tiger in the compound where she was working, which the Zoo officials described it as an "abnormal accident".
After King's death, television presenter and naturalist Steve Backshall said that as animals living and hunting alone in the wild, tigers kept in captivity could be exposed to unnecessary stress.
"In the wild, they will have huge home ranges and will rarely come in contact with other tigers," Backshall told the BBC.
"And in captivity, they will often be kept in relatively small pens with other tigers, and there is no doubt that this could cause artificial tension in these landlocked populations.
"A wild tiger could cover more than 3,885 km2 (1,500 square miles). Obviously, you could never have a zoo of this size. "
