Groom in serious condition after Jozi tiger attack

It took a brave and quick-thinking animal handler - armed only with a broom - to get a 150kg tiger to stop mauling a McLaren Circus groom yesterday.

Despite the efforts of Jansen Grant, his 27-year-old colleague, whose identity has not been released, suffered deep lacerations and puncture wounds to his chest, shoulder and neck.

The incident took place in Muldersdrift, west of Johannesburg, at about 7.50am yesterday when the groom was cleaning the tigers' enclosure.

Grant said the groom had flouted standard procedure, which calls for two people to be in the enclosure when cleaning it, and for the gates, which separate the big cats from the cleaners, to be locked.

"All I heard was screaming. As I came running out of the caravan I saw that the cage door was open. He was lying down, with the tiger on top of him. A tiger's natural instinct is, when something is on the ground, to get on top of it.

"I picked up a broom and shook the tiger with it.

"She [the tiger] resisted at first but then cooperated, after which I pushed her back into the cage and closed it," said Grant.

Netcare 911 paramedics treated the man at the scene before transporting him to hospital, where he is reported to be in a serious but stable condition.

Circus management refused to identify which of their six tigers had attacked the man but said she weighed 150kg and was two-and-a-half years old.

The SPCA said the incident was a warning against keeping wild animals in captivity.

"Wild animals stay wild animals," said Randburg SPCA inspector Jessica Long. "They simply should not be kept in cages for mere entertainment or monetary gain."

Zoologist Dr Brian Kuhn said: "Man always has this arrogant need to trap animals and make them jump through hoops.

"A wild animal under those conditions is a ticking time bomb."

He said such incidents we re particularly likely to happen when an animal was abused or subjected to stress.

"[The predictability of the behaviour of] captive cats is tenuous at best. Animals in a circus are under constant stress due to the crowds and travelling," he said.

Johannesburg Zoo veterinarian Dr Katja Koeppel said that, for a carnivore, jumping on top of another animal was normal behaviour.

"[A circus] is a very unnatural environment for a wild animal," she said. "They're expected to perform in all that noise and light. If the animal is in pain, or not feeling well, and is then still put under pressure, it is liable to snap," Koeppel said.

But the owner of the circus, David McLaren, said the attack was the first in over nine years of the show.

"Mistakes do happen ... The guy who does the Swing of Death fell last year and dislocated his shoulder.

"There is danger ... that is the fantasy about the circus. That is what lures people," he said.