On Saturday at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, a visitor to the park yet to be officially identified gained access to the Tiger Enclosure.  According to witnesses he then crawled up to Altai, a beautiful Siberian tiger of an endangered sub-species, apparently with the intention of having his picture taken with the animal.  But Altai had other ideas, and instead, in an incident which lasted several minutes and which was captured by witnesses on video, attacked and killed the man.

At first sight it looks like a straightforward case of a silly person thinking a tiger was going to be a big furry friend who’d oblige him with selfies, while the tiger saw him only as a hot lunch and did what comes naturally.

Yet there are other undertones to the incident.  One witness claimed that the man was both autistic and deaf, and while this has yet to be confirmed, if it is correct it raises the issue of where was his carer, and why was he left alone to climb into the enclosure?

But even if this isn’t correct, there are other questions.  Staff were present inside the enclosure at the time and yet did nothing active to save the man from the tiger, beyond vague attempts to orally distract the animal from a distance.  They could, and perhaps should, have shot the tiger before he was able to kill him.

If a man, despite the obvious dangers involved, gains access at his own risk to a tiger, is it wrong to kill the tiger to save him?

Or does the life of a man always take priority over that of an animal, given that the background to how and why he came to be in the enclosure isn’t known?