A woman was mauled by a jaguar after she reportedly climbed over a safety barrier in a bid to take a selfie with the animal.
Mobile phone footage showed her writhing on the ground in pain with a gash on her forearm following the incident on Saturday at the Wildlife World Zoo in Phoenix, Arizona.
“I hear this young girl screaming: ‘Help, help, help’ ... and the jaguar has clasped its claws outside the cage around her hand and into her flesh,” witness Adam Wilkerson told Fox 10 television.
Wilkerson’s mother distracted the jaguar by pushing a water bottle through the cage, and Wilkerson said he pulled the woman away. Video footage later showed the animal chewing on a plastic water bottle.
The zoo assured animal lovers the matter will be fully investigated, but the big cat will not be put down.
“We can promise you nothing will happen to our jaguar,” the organisation said on Twitter.
The barrier surrounds the entire exhibit, creating a buffer of several feet from the enclosure, zoo spokeswoman Kristy Morcom told Fox 10.
“There is climbing involved. It’s not something that is easily done,” Morcom said. “These are wild animals and those barriers are put there for a reason.”
The woman, aged in her 30s, was taken to a hospital and treated, then later returned to the zoo to apologise, Shawn Gilleland, a spokesman for the Rural Metro Fire crew which attended the incident, said.
“She wanted to take a selfie or a picture of the animal, and she put her arm close enough to the cage that the cat was able to reach her,” Gilleland said.
The private facility has more than 600 species and 6,000 animals on display.