Zookeeper mauled to death by rare white Bengal tigress after 'mistake' feeding beast

A was mauled to death by a rare white Bengal after a “mistake” when feeding the predator. Alexey Melnikov died instantly at Mariupol Zoo in -occupied - while a female worker was lucky to escape from the .

The big cat, named Lucy, “attacked him and gnawed his head” and was likely “defending her four cubs”, said the zoo. Fellow keeper Galina Zamarakhina said: “I turned around and said ‘Lyosha [Alexey], where’s Lucy?’ He said: 'In that booth, I moved her over already’.”

In fact, it appears he mistakenly hadn’t moved her and she was lurking in a wooden den when he went into her cage. “I heard a scream,” said Galina. “I somehow managed to close the cage in time, because she [the tigress] was looking at me. I don’t know how I managed to shut it.”

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Zoo director Savely Vashura said: “The white tigress has four cubs. She came out from behind, and bam – the man was gone.

“Maybe he got distracted, maybe something else happened – he was only human.” He continued: “Why it happened, I don’t know… He knew the animals, he loved them.”

The keeper’s blood was seen in the cage, as were his bloodstained clothes. The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the man’s death.

A spokesman said: “A white tiger attacked an employee of the Mariupol Zoo. According to preliminary data, the animal attacked the employee when he entered the enclosure to feed it.

“The man died from the injuries he received.” The dead man was earlier shown on Russian TV saying he had come to work in Mariupol from Crimea.

“I used to work at Yalta Zoo,” he said. "I love animals very much – I can’t live without them. I clean, feed the predators. Mostly I work with predators. I move them [from one cage to another], keeping things in order."

It comes after a tiger mauled an handler at a popularin an "isolated and rare" attack last September. The 47-year-old woman, was bitten on the arm while she was working at Dreamworld, in, which also features a wildlife conservation park.

She suffered "some serious lacerations and puncture wounds" from the animal, and was feeling "pale" and "unwell, but generally well," Queensland Ambulance Service director Justin Payne said. She was taken from Dreamworld in Coomera in Queensland state to the Gold Coast University Hospital in a stable condition.

Staff managed the bleeding as an ambulance was called to Dreamworld just before 9am, Mr Payne said. The amusement park opens to the public at 10am.

"We were advised that at that location a 47-year-old female, an experienced handler, had been bitten by one of the tigers," Mr Payne said. "The patient obviously had received some serious lacerations and puncture wounds from the animal. She was quite pale and feeling unwell, but generally well."