A rare Tbilisi Zoo tiger was shot to death yesterday after the starving beast attacked a man and attempted to devour him.
The incident infuriated the president of flood-damaged Georgia, who had been assured by officials taking stock of Tbilisi’s spectacularly destroyed public zoo that all its escaped animals had been accounted for.
Half of the estimated 600 captive wildlife once housed there perished in the raging floods last weekend, which occurred after hours of sudden and epic rains caused the River Vere to burst its banks.
The white tiger killed on Wednesday had apparently sought refuge in a warehouse at the devastated city’s center and, when she saw her 43-year-old prey was unaware he was being stalked, pounced on him.
The mauled man was quickly rescued by coworkers but died of serious throat wounds before he could be rushed to a hospital, officials are reporting.
Georgia’s prime minister Irakli Garibashvili endeavored to calm the public from “false panic” about the incident, but, despite his assertion that no other predators were on the loose, a zoo spokesman confessed that at least one big cat was still missing.
A sighting later in the day, however, turned out to be false.
The rare Tbilisi Zoo tiger which sadly had to be killed after hunting and dining on human flesh is one of only a few thousand left on the planet, say conservationists.
The murdered animal is yet another tragic casualty of an extreme weather event that claimed the lives of some 300 of her fellow captives, including penguins, hippos, wolves, bears and lions.
Only 19 people died in the catastrophic flooding.
