Nothing good is going to come of a situation that involves being in a cage with a wild animal at the zoo. Nothing. And yet, people keep putting themselves in situations where – despite warnings from the zoo and others around them – they come face to face with lions, tigers, and bears (oh, my). Some of these people died with a caged animal, others were injured or maimed by a captive wild beast. Obviously, these people weren't rocket scientists or else they wouldn't have ended up in such a precarious predicament.
These are 13 of the dumbest, most idiotic, and sometimes drunkest people to ever jump the fence at a zoo. Some of them have lived to tell the tale, others not so much.
Zoo Attacks: 17 Idiots Who Climbed the Fence at the Zoo,
Tiger Mauls Lady's Hand in Stupid Halloween Prank
A drunk woman at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska got her hand bitten by a tiger when she stupidly disobeyed zoo rules and reached in to it's cage to give it a pet on Halloween night, 2015. The 18-year-old Malayan tiger thought the 33-year-old would make a great midnight snack, and the woman was rushed to the hospital after the tiger's bite caused "severe trauma to her hand." No word on weather she was dressed as a delicious steak.
Woman Jumps Into Polar Bear Moat
As a “curvy” lady, I myself have tried my fair share of extreme diets; juice cleanses, Atkins, Jell-O, etc. have all provided temporary results for my permanent huge ass problem. Well, this lady decided, at age 32, that dieting the safe way was not enough and enlisted the help of a team of Polar Bears to help with her weight loss. This is probably why she did this. It was no accident and a reason was never released to the press, but I seriously can't think of any other reason to go into a Polar Bear habitat other than to, I don't know... snuggle them?
She JUMPED FROM A WALL INTO A MOAT AND SWAM UP TO A GROUP OF POLAR BEARS. Willingly. Onlookers say she even looked excited as she swam up to one of the behemoth bears.
Yeah, so the polar bears mauled the hell out of this lady. In fact, afterward, she changed her mind and started shouting for someone to get her out the moat, the bears continued to pursue the intruder, tearing her from the rescue rings thrown by zookeepers to try and remove her to safety. She was eventually hoisted to safety and underwent surgery to repair the damage done by giant bear bites.
She probably lost about 5 lbs in flesh, though.
So you know. There's that.
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Man-Bites-Panda-Bites-Man (Again)
Gu Gu the Panda is one mean bastard with a taste for human flesh. In 2007, a 15-year-old jumped into the Panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo looking to get a hug from his sweet, furry friend, forgetting to take into account that Pandas are F@*#ING BEARS.
The kid extended his arms for a hug, got bit instead, and then bit Gu Gu back.
It’s no surprise, then, that this Panda bastard was looking for revenge when 28-year-old Zhang Zhio fell into the bear enclosure, trying to catch something his son was throwing at him.
Was it dad’s wallet, you ask? His mother’s wedding ring? An iphone 5? No, it was a toy. Some small, stupid toy they could have replaced at the gift shop on the way out.
Ugh. Anyway, Zhio is in the pen thinking, “it’s a panda, what’s it gonna do, eat some bamboo and smile at me?” and ends up getting bit on both legs before the zookeepers arrive with tools to pry open Gu Gu’s jaws. As previously mentioned, this was a “been there, done that” sitch for the zookeepers who knew they weren’t just going to be able to tickle the panda’s chin to get him to release the man’s leg; they brought the mother loving jaws (removing) of life to free Zhio.
Despite the fact that Gu Gu is a repeat offender (this was his third foray into biting intruders), the zoo has neither raised the fence around his enclosure nor done anything in the way of punishment to the panda, who happens to be one of China’s national animals. In fact, it is Zhio who will likely face charges for the disturbance.
Woman Loses Fingers/Buzz to Bears
Tracy Weiler, a 47-year-old woman, decided to get drunk with her boyfriend and take a three-year-old child to the zoo for a visit with some wildlife they weren’t related to.The trio was visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo in Manitowoc, WI when Weiler decided the bears weren’t getting enough to eat and that she should be the one to feed them. She crossed several barriers and ignored multiple warning signs to stay away from the bears before extending her food offerings to the bears, who ignored whatever snack shop fare the woman was offering and ate her fingers for lunch instead. The boyfriend tried to intervene and was bitten, but didn’t lose any digits.
Did I mention this all happened at 11:30am? If getting drunk and losing at least two of your fingers to a bear before noon is your idea of a productive Friday, this lady could probably be one of your role models.
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Man Loses Arm Trying to Get Better Pictures of Tigers
So, this is kind of a given in a list about stupid people that jump the fence to horrendous results, but when you go to a zoo to look at animals, there are fences and barriers for a reason. They’re not there to keep you from getting cool pictures of animals, they’re there to keep you from getting eaten.
Well, Jai Prakash Bezbaruah, a 50-year-old man who was on the last stop of his vacation with his wife and two children, must have really thought the zoo was out to protect the animals from being photographed at a bad angle (everybody knows the left side is a tiger’s “bad” side) because he snuck down to the inner enclosure of the Guwahati Zoo to snap some artsy photos when a female lion came over grabbed hold of his arm.
Several zookeepers had been trying to stop Bezbaruah from being as close as he was to the deadly animals, but before they could stop him or aid him in rescue, a male tiger appeared and aided the female in ripping the man’s left arm off.
Bezbaruah was transported immediately to the hospital but died of his injuries before he arrived. Unlike Jude Law, Govardhan, and Divya, the tigers responsible for the attack were not hit with charges for attacking the paparazzi.
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Zoo Officials Kill Lions to Save Man
Chilean zoo officials had to shoot and kill two lions after a suicidal man got naked and climbed into their enclosure. According to onlookers, he was taunting the cats and chanting “very apocalyptic, very religious” proverbs. Officials later found what they thought was a suicide note with his clothes, but the paper mostly had very Christian messaging and drawings of lions. Officials they were forced to kill the lions in order to save him. Crowds watched as the two cats were put down.
Man Savaged by Monkeys Trying to Retrieve Cell Phone
A monkey at the zoo steals your cell phone. Do you wait in line at AT&T for an iPhone 5 or risk being attacked by monkeys?
Silly question. The monkey attack, obviously.
Zheng Dong was taking pictures of a bunch of macaque monkeys at the Fuzhou Zoo in China when one of the wily monkeys snatched his phone away. Zheng, who must have had some amazing sexts he didn’t want to lose track of, jumped the fence to retrieve the phone when three of the monkeys surrounded him and scratched at him until several zookeepers came to his rescue and removed him from the cage.
While Dong made it out alive, his cell phone was chewed up beyond repair. Instead of thanking the zookeepers profusely for saving him from being eaten by a bunch of monkeys, he sought compensation from the zoo for a new phone. That Dong is a real dick.
Man Loses Kung Fu Fight With Lion
In 1989, 32-year-old Australian man Ellie Quo decided to seek out a martial arts matchup that would test his awesome new skills in Kung Fu.
Told by his instructor that he had reached a level in his training where "you can kill wild animals with your bare hands," the misguided student decided to follow his instructor’s words to the letter and sought a fight with a lion at the Melbourne Zoo.
In the middle of the night, he snuck into the zoo and in true ninja stealth style, scaled the lion enclosure and surveyed the pen to see which of the mighty warriors would die by his hands. Thing is, there were a whole lot of lions to choose from, and rather than let this one tiny scrap of human get in a single punch, they all ganged up on the guy and ripped him to shreds. Literally.
The next morning, zoo keepers found Quo’s fists of fury – and nothing more – in the lions’ enclosure. In his cold, dead hands were tufts of red fur, proving that gingers in the animal kingdom do in fact have souls (because they eat them).
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Two Men Mauled While Trying to Honor Tiger
Shiva the Destroyer: this is not an animal whose face you want to be anywhere near. Shiva, a 13-year-old Bengal Tiger, was minding his own business at the Calcutta Zoo when Prakesh Tiwari and Suresh Rai decided they didn’t want to exclude anybody from their New Year’s festivities, especially a deadly tiger separated from zoo patrons by a moat.
A moat. A method of protection to guard castles from invaders in medieval times is what these two tiger worshipping followers of the goddess Durga crossed to get into Shiva’s enclosure so that they might present him with a marigold flower garland to welcome the New Year.
Not surprisingly, this male Bengal Tiger did not take kindly to these men trying to outfit him with a necklace and promptly attacked Rai as he threw the garland around Shiva’s neck. Tiwari intervened by KICKING THE TIGER IN THE FACE. That actually sounds pretty badass until you learn that the tiger diverted its attention to mauling Tiwari who was killed in the attack. Rai survived to present garlands to other dieties.
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Barefoot Man Wants a Bear Hug
A 32-year-old barefoot man wandered into the bear enclosure at the Warsaw zoo and got into a fight with a female bear named Sabina. Witnesses found blood around the enclosure and alerted police, who had to rescue the shoe-less, shorts-wearing man from the cage. He managed to survive the fight with only a bite to the arm and a fine for "provoking the animal into aggression."