On Thursday, a man jumped into a lion enclosure in India, wanting to take a selfie. Sadly, the man lost his life as the animal mauled him to death.
Man dares lion for a selfie, jumps into enclosure, gets mauled.40-year-old Prahlad Gujjar jumped into a lion enclosure for a selfie in Tirupati SV Zoo park. He also behaved in a way to provoke the lion. After the lion attacked him, he made an in vain attempt to save himself by… pic.twitter.com/4vWaRNkSZM— Sudhakar Udumula (@sudhakarudumula) February 15, 2024
The tragedy occurred at the Asiatic lion in Sri Venkateswara Zoological Park in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. 40-year-old Prahlad Gujjar reportedly jumped over a 12-foot high fence of the lion enclosure and provoked the animal with his behavior. The large cat attacked him, and Gujjar reportedly tried to escape by climbing a tree. Unfortunately, his escape attempt was unsuccessful.
According to The Independent, Tirupati police said that a security guard raised the alarm when they saw Gujjar trying to jump over the fence and ran towards him. However, he managed to jump onto the water tank inside the enclosure.
“When he saw the security guard running towards him, Gujjar jumped onto a water tank and climbed over the 12-foot-high fence surrounding the enclosure, which has a lion and two lionesses,” Officer Mallika Garg said. “He jumped and fell in front of the lions, which mauled him. He died on the spot.”
The three lions from the enclosure reportedly stayed near the man’s remains until their caretakers guided them into their feeding cages and retrieved the man’s body. The lion that mauled Gujjar has been moved to a separate cage in the zoo for observation.
Unfortunately, this isn’t even the first case of someone getting injured or killed because they wanted to take a selfie with a dangerous wild animal. In 2016, there was the first case I’ve heard of when a man died after trying to take a selfie with a walrus. Then, in 2018, a man died after trying to take a selfie with a bear, and a woman was attacked by a jaguar in 2019 after making the same attempt. Animal-related accidents are near the top of the list when it comes to selfie-related deaths, according to a study from 2018. Apparently, the present and the future aren’t looking bright either, considering that taking selfies became a “public health problem” in 2023.
[via PetaPixel]
