A shocking video shows the moment a zookeeper is fatally attacked and eaten alive by lions after going inside their cage to ‘impress his girlfriend’.
The guard, named as F. Iriskulov, 44, unknowingly caught his final moments on camera as he filmed himself entering the lions’ cage before being mauled.
The footage shows him unlocking a padlock to the enclosure where he works at a private zoo in Parkent, Uzbekistan at 5am on December 17 during his night shift.
The three beasts appear passive at first, sitting calmly in the far corner of the enclosure.
Suddenly, the beast springs up and the man steps back in evident surprise before the animals approach him slowly.
He repeatedly calls the name of one of the lions: ‘Simba,’ before telling the animal: ‘Simba, be quiet.’
He seemingly recorded the video to send to his girlfriend, defiantly flipping the camera to show his face as he is surrounded by the lions.
The keeper even pets one of the animals as it gets concerningly close to him, suggesting they are familiar with each other.
But immediately after he touches the animal’s mane, in an apparent sign of the horrors to come, the lion licks its lips and the man appears to momentarily retreat towards the metal gate.
The three beasts appear passive at first, sitting calmly in the far corner of the enclosure
The keeper pets one of the animals as it gets concerningly close to him during the video
The 44-year-old seemingly recorded the video to send to his girlfriend, flipping the camera to show his face as he is surrounded by the lions
The lions begin stalking around the keeper, who seems unaware of the danger they pose to him
Then, just two minutes after he unlocked the door and entered the cage, the video takes a harrowing turn, with one of the lions launching an attack on the unassuming keeper.
He lets out piercing screams as he is overcome by the animals, his camera still running.
The video goes dark, but the chilling audio of his yells continues, as he continues to beg: ‘Be quiet, be quiet….’
The footage then cuts, but reports say that the lions then devoured the guard.
The beasts ‘tore the skin off the guard’s face’, according to Russian media reports.
Rescuers tranquilised two of the lions and shot the third dead following the fatal attack.
An official statement said: ‘The lions killed him and partially consumed his body.’
The man’s remains were only found by other zoo workers four hours after the attack, it was revealed.
Horrific images, too graphic to publish, show what little was left of the man’s bloodied body.
The zookeeper is seen in a social media picture posing with a lion cub
Uzbek media reported at the time that the man had been mauled by the three African lions after their cage had been left open by accident, with the animals able to get out of their cage and into the courtyard outside.
Authorities launched an investigation into the incident at the time, with all the animals’ enclosures checked and secured.
‘As a result of the measures taken, the lions were returned to a special cage. No other people in the vicinity were harmed. There is currently no danger to the local population,’ the Department of Internal Affairs said in a statement.
Mr Iriskulov had previously shared social media pictures posing with a lion cub at the wildlife park.
According to local media, the zoo houses 10 adult African lions, five lion cubs, one brown bear, one eagle, one cheetah and other non-predatory mammals and birds.
The park has been open since June 2019 and is set in just over two acres of land.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
