A startling video captures the moment a zookeeper enters a lion’s cage to ‘impress his girlfriend’ and is fatally attacked and devoured by the animals.
The zookeeper, identified as 44-year-old F. Iriskulov, filmed himself approaching the lions’ cage prior to being mauled.
At 5 a.m. on December 17, while working the night shift at a private zoo in Parkent, Uzbekistan, the video captures him opening a padlock on the enclosure.
Initially, the three lions sit calmly in the far corner of the enclosure, giving the impression that they are inactive. The man backs off in obvious surprise as the beast suddenly leaps to life, and then the creatures slowly approach him.
He repeatedly mentions one of the lions’ names, ‘Simba,’ before ordering the animal to keep quiet.
Despite being surrounded by lions, he confidently flips the camera to reveal his face, as if he were recording the video to send to his fiancée.
When one of the animals approaches him, the keeper strokes it, indicating that they are acquainted.
However, the lion licks its lips as soon as he touches the animal’s mane and the man briefly turns to face the metal gate.
The footage then takes a terrifying turn, with one of the lions attacking the unsuspecting keeper just two minutes after he unlocked the door and went inside the cage.
With his camera still going, he shouts loudly as the creatures overwhelm him.
The video cuts to black, but the eerie sound of his screams reverberates as he keeps pleading, ‘Be quiet, be quiet.’
The video then cuts, but the guard is said to have been eaten by the lions.
The animals ‘tore the skin off the guard’s face,’ the Russian authorities said.
