A tiger handler who had acquired some of his tigers from the zoo owner known as Joe Exotic was fatally mauled on Saturday by a tiger at his family-run zoo in southeastern Oklahoma, the authorities said.
The handler, Ryan Easley, 37, was near the end of a show at the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve when a tiger that he had raised since it was a cub suddenly attacked him, according to the Choctaw County sheriff, Terry Park.
“In a split-second everything was OK, and then the tiger grabbed him and started biting him around the neck area and shoulder area,” Sheriff Park said in an interview on Monday. When Mr. Easley fell to the ground after the attack, the tiger backed away and Mr. Easley’s wife went into the cage and moved the tiger to another cage, Sheriff Park said.
Deputies and emergency medical workers responded and pronounced Mr. Easley dead at the scene, Sheriff Park said. He said he was not sure how many visitors had been watching Mr. Easley’s act at the time, but said that the Easleys’ daughter had been among those present.
The facility, in Hugo, Okla., confirmed Mr. Easley’s death in a statement on Sunday.
“This tragedy is a painful reminder of both the beauty and unpredictability of the natural world,” the statement said. “Ryan understood those risks — not out of recklessness but out of love.” The facility said that all tours had been postponed.
Sheriff Park said that Mr. Easley had acquired some of the tigers at Growler Pines — although not the one involved in the fatal mauling — from Joe Exotic, the former Oklahoma zoo owner who was the central figure in the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King.”
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The post Tiger Handler Linked to Joe Exotic Is Fatally Mauled by Tiger appeared first on New York Times.
