Rare white tiger kills zookeeper in Japan

Tokyo : A rare white tiger has mauled a zookeeper to death in its enclosure at a zoo in Japan, an official said.

The 40-year-old man was found bleeding from the neck in the tiger's cage late on Monday at the Hirakawa Zoological Park in Kagoshima city. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead, the BBC reported.

Zoo authorities believe he was attacked by one of the park's four white tigers. The tiger was sedated with a tranquiliser before rescue workers and police arrived at the scene.

Police is now probing how the zoo looks after its white tigers, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.

In 2017, a British zookeeper was killed by a tiger in its enclosure in a Cambridgeshire zoo, while in Russia a keeper survived a tiger attack in the city of Kaliningrad.