Star White Tiger at Zoo in Miami Kills Keeper

A rare white Bengal tiger, one of the star attractions at Miami’s sprawling suburban zoo, fatally mauled a zookeeper Monday after the man entered the animal’s outdoor exhibit.

Veteran zookeeper David Marshall, 45, was killed after he entered the moated enclosure apparently unaware that the tiger was still uncaged, said Metrozoo spokesman Ron Magill. He said that the death occurred during a time of day when the 350-pound male tiger, named Lucknow, was to be moved from one enclosure to another.

There were no witnesses and, although the death was believed to be accidental, county homicide officers said they would investigate.

“As beautiful, as majestic, as approachable as these animals seem to be, there’s the old saying, ‘You can take the animal out of the wild, but you can’t take the wild out of the animal,’ ” said Magill, a friend of Marshall’s who was close to tears at a morning news conference. “Unfortunately, that’s been proven today.”

Asked if the tiger would be destroyed, Magill answered: “Nothing happens to the tiger. The tiger was just being a tiger.

“To condemn the tiger would be to compound the tragedy. People have a misconception that they are pets. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is what we would expect a tiger to do.”

Magill said that Marshall had to ignore or overlook several safety features at the tiger exhibit to have entered the paddock where the tiger roamed. “Everything seems to point to human error,” said Magill.

Marshall, a Metrozoo employee for 11 years, had no pulse when found by other zoo employees after he failed to respond to a call on the radio. He had suffered severe cuts.

Deaths caused by zoo tigers are considered extremely rare. Tiger expert Ron Tilson of the Minnesota Zoo said that he could remember “one, maybe two such incidents in the U.S. in the last seven years.” By comparison, an average of one person a year is killed by zoo or circus elephants in the United States.

Lucknow and his sister Kampur were acquired 10 years ago from the Cincinnati zoo, where they were born. Although extremely popular with zoo visitors, white tigers are controversial among many zoologists since most in captivity result from selective breeding of parents and offspring with the same genetic mutation.

Tilson, tiger species coordinator for the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, has deplored the practice of such in-breeding.