An eyewitness snapped photos of a young zoo visitor posing with a Siberian tiger behind him, moments before the man climbed into the enclosure and was mauled to death.
Del Taylor was watching Altai, a five-year-old Siberian tiger, from a viewing platform at Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster on Saturday when a man in his early 20s approached her alone and asked for a picture.
She took the shots on his phone. Moments after she and her partner walked away, the man climbed over a metre-high viewing barrier, dropped onto the grass a few feet from the animal, and was attacked. He died at the scene.
The Sun reported Taylor’s firsthand account of the encounter, the photos, and the frantic seconds that followed inside the pen.
Taylor said the man was by himself when he came up beside her on the bridge overlooking the enclosure.
She described his first request clearly.
"Can you grab a shot of myself with the tiger?"
Taylor took the phone and framed the image so Altai appeared behind him. He was not satisfied with one.
"One more, one more, one more."
Her partner was recording the tiger at the same time. Taylor said the audio caught the whole exchange. When he finished posing, the man thanked her.
"Thank you, lady."
Taylor later said he had been dancing on the bridge before he ended up next to her. “He was completely alone,” she recalled. After the photos, she and her partner left.
Only moments later, the same man went over the metre-high viewing barrier and dropped into the enclosure. He landed on the grass a few feet from Altai.
Video captured what came next. As the tiger circled him, the man yelled in panic.
"No, no, no"
He kept shouting as the animal closed in.
"Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop"
Altai lunged for his neck. Rangers reached the scene and fired warning shots. The 30-stone Siberian tiger retreated to its pen. The man died where he fell.
Police continued to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.
The New York Post identified the man as William Chapman, a vulnerable visitor in his early 20s who had come to the park alone. Reporting there said he filmed footage of Altai from a wooden platform shortly before the attack.
Witnesses described erratic behavior before he went over the fence. One account said a mother tried to pull him back from the barrier. Chapman overpowered her and jumped into the enclosure anyway. The woman was left badly shaken; other visitors said she told them she had tried to stop him but would not risk her own life.
That detail hardens the picture Taylor’s photos already suggested. This was not a child wandering off. An adult climbed a clear barrier in front of other people, ignored an attempt to hold him back, and put himself within reach of a full-grown Siberian tiger.
Once Altai attacked, park rangers did what they could with warning shots and drove the animal back to its pen. No account in the available reporting describes a successful medical rescue. Chapman died at the scene.
The tiger was not euthanized. Park officials treated Altai as an animal that had responded as a large predator does when a person drops into its space at close range. The barrier, the viewing platform, and the pen were there to keep that from happening.
Taylor’s photos and her partner’s recording now sit at the center of the public record: a young man asking a stranger for one more shot with the tiger in the background, saying thank you, then going over the rail after the couple left. Other visitors saw dancing on the bridge, a struggle at the fence, and a final drop onto the grass a few feet from Altai.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park remains the site of a fatal breach of a basic zoo barrier. Police are still examining how Chapman got from the viewing platform into the enclosure and why no one could stop him in time.
Wild animals do not negotiate with people who climb into their pens. The fence was the last clear warning. He went over it, and the tiger did the rest.
