Woman gets out of car to argue with boyfriend and is dragged away by a Siberian tiger

 

A disturbing video captured the moment a young woman was seized by a tiger before her mother was fatally attacked while attempting to rescue her.

What seemingly started as a domestic dispute at Badaling Wildlife Park in Beijing, China, in 2016 turned deadly after the woman, identified only as Ms Zhao, exited her vehicle to confront her partner in the driver's seat - inside a Siberian tiger enclosure. Alternative accounts, however, suggest the family simply believed they had departed the area where the tigers were housed. A Siberian tiger quickly attacked the young woman, and the footage shows it pulling her away. Her mother also exited the vehicle in an attempt to save her. A second tiger then struck, dragging the older woman to her death despite desperate rescue attempts by park staff. Badaling employees managed to save Ms Zhao, who was transported to hospital with serious neck injuries, but her mother died.

The park was ordered to halt all operations by Yangqing District authorities following the incident in July 2016.

An investigation subsequently determined that the incident was not its responsibility, and the park reopened in November that year, although self-driving tours are now banned. The surviving daughter has since filed a lawsuit against the park seeking damages totaling 1.25 million yuan intended to cover Ms Zhou's funeral expenses, costs for her dependents and consolation compensation for other family members. The 6,000-acre facility, located near a renowned stretch of the Great Wall of China, permits guests to drive through animal enclosures.

The park has a troubling history of severe safety incidents. In 2014, a security guard who ventured out of his patrol vehicle was fatally injured by a Bengal tiger, and in 2016 an employee was killed by an elephant.

Siberian tigers are widely regarded by experts as the world's largest tiger species, with the Bengal tiger holding the second-largest position. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) classified them as critically endangered before 2008 but subsequently upgraded their status to endangered, with the IUCN now deeming the global population stable. Nevertheless, the tiger's resurgence has been gradual owing to persistent poaching threats, shrinking habitat size and deteriorating quality from logging and forest fires, declining prey numbers, and insufficient genetic diversity within the subspecies resulting from excessive hunting.

Thousands of tigers are bred in facilities throughout China, yet critics argue such programs contribute minimally to wild population recovery and occasionally mask illegal trafficking in animal parts, which undeniably plays a role in their endangered classification.