A mentally disturbed man climbed inside the tiger pen at a Chinese zoo in front of a crowd of mortified onlookers, antagonised the animals, but still managed to miraculously escaped after officials intervened.
27-year-old Yang Jinhai even offered himself up to the animals as food, while the zoo’s visitors couldn’t help themselves from documenting the incident by taking pictures.
According to the Daily Mail , Jinhai allegedly stated that “he wanted to improve the lives of caged tigers at a local zoo by offering them his own body to eat.”
While at Chengdu Zoo, Jinhai took to a social media website to write about the “noble and magnificent tigers,” and how depressing it was to see them caged in such tight and un-natural conditions, which stops the beasts from being able to hunt and kill.
As he became more and more depressed by this realisation, he decided to sacrifice himself so that the Bengal tigers could get more support.
Feng Lin, an eyewitness to the ordeal described it in more detail, stating, “He climbed up the outside of the cage and jumped inside expecting, I assume, that the tigers would pounce on him. Instead the two tigers, a male and a female, seemed more nervous than anything else and the female actually ran off.”
Feng continued, “He then tried to antagonise the tigers by pulling faces at them. Eventually he was attacked by the male where he was cut after being scratched and bitten before he could be rescued by zoo keepers who fired a tranquilliser dart at the male tiger.” Jinhai was then pulled out of the enclose by stunned zoo employees.
Jinhai’s family admitted that he had been severely depressed for quite a while. After surviving his brush with a grisly death, Jinhai has been admitted to an institution that deals with his problems.
Over the last few weeks, Jinhai has posted several messages online about how optimistic he was about a new life after he was hired as a security guard. However, after starting the position, he found himself immediately getting bored with of it because of its monotonous nature.
He then acquired another job at a printing factory, but he soon stated that he felt there was more to life than his current employment so, again, he handed in his resignation.
Last year , a British zoo keeper was killed after she was dragged into a pen at South Lakes Wild Animal Park.
