A young woman was mauled to death by a tiger in a safari park in Chile after colleagues failed to tell her the door to the tiger’s cage she was cleaning had been left open, it has been reported.
Ecotourism graduate Catalina Ibarra, 21, was killed by the big cat at Safari Rancagua in the central Chilean city of the same name on Friday.
Catalina, 21, was working at the safari park at the time and was sent to perform cleaning duties when the fatal attack occurred.
The tiger leapt on the woman, bit down on her neck and she died instantly, according to reports.
According to her colleague Leonardo Maluenda, she was not told the tiger’s cage door was open.
Leonardo told reporters: “The most logical thing is that they tell you to be careful if you go to clean up there because the tiger is loose, but they did not warn her.”
A spate of finger pointing has followed, with administration and finance manager Antonio Rojas claiming that a group of workers had deliberately unlocked the tigers’ cage against protocol.
The workers in question have said the cage was already open and they did not open it themselves.
Catalina was tasked with cleaning and maintenance at the safari park, where she had been working for over two years, and she occasionally gave guided tours to families.
None of her duties involved having direct contact with any of the animals, according to the facility, which is now being investigated for possible negligence.
At the time of reporting, the tiger that killed Catalina had not been euthanised, but its fate remains unclear.
