Shanghai zookeeper mauled to death by highly endangered South China tiger

BEIJING – A keeper at Shanghai's zoo has been mauled to death by a tiger.

The zoo said on its Twitter-like microblog that investigators were looking into the cause of Tuesday morning's incident. No other details were given.

State media reports identified the victim as a 56-year-old man surnamed Zhou. They cited unidentified colleagues as saying the man entered the tiger enclosure to clean and was not seen again.

The animal involved was identified as a highly endangered South China tiger, considered effectively extinct in the wild after decades of being hunted as a pest.

Built on a former golf course, Shanghai's zoo is one of China's largest and most popular urban animal parks.