Lion drags girl into cage
2010-05-30 13:55
Moscow - A lion in a Russian zoo dragged a four-year-old girl through the bars of its cage and mauled her neck and arm, the Interfax news agency reported.
The girl was visiting a zoo in Tambov in southern Russia on Saturday with her grandparents when she approached the lion's enclosure and it dragged her in with its paw, a spokesperson for the city's police told Interfax.
"The visitors and zoo workers managed to shoo away the animal, which had time to seriously maul the little girl's neck and arm," the police spokesman said.
The girl underwent an operation and on Sunday was in a "very serious" condition in a city hospital, Interfax reported.
A section of the bars around the lion's enclosure was missing, a Tambov district police officer, Sergei Ivashchenko, told Komsomolskaya Pravda daily.
Russian zoos, especially those in provincial towns, often keep animals in inhumane and cramped conditions.
