NY POST: Cat got your tongue? How about your finger?
A Jamaica zookeeper brought new meaning to “hand-feeding” after getting his right ring finger bitten off by a caged lion that he’d been taunting through a chain-link fence. A video of the bozo’s thumb-uppance is currently going viral online.
“When it happened, I thought it was a joke. I didn’t think it was serious,” an unnamed female visitor told the Jamaica Observer of the incident, which occurred Friday, May 20, at the Jamaica Zoo in St. Elizabeth.
The bystander, who was part of a tour with 15 people, said the zookeeper was trying to impress the group by sticking his hand into the cage of a massive male lion.
Little did the chucklehead know he’d literally be giving it the finger.
In the shocking YouTube clip, the cat-agonist can be seen brazenly reaching his hand through the chain-link fence toward the lion and its mouth as the enraged beast snaps and snarls at him. However, each time it tries to bite him, the daredevil jerks his hand away in the nick of time — for the most part.
Things appear to be going swimmingly until the cat chomps down on one of the amateur lion tamer’s fingers, causing him to howl in pain. The cat-wrangler tries to pull free — at one point bracing his feet against the fence for leverage — but to no avail, as the powerful predator refuses to relinquish its grip.
Finally, after one last yank, the keeper wrenches himself free and topples back onto his bottom as onlookers gasp in shock.
Despite the graphic attack, the aforementioned spectator initially thought the man was just horsing around.
“I didn’t realize the seriousness of it because it’s their job to put on a show,” she said. “Obviously, when he fell on the ground, everybody realized that it was serious. Everybody started to panic.”
That’s when they realized the extent of the damage. “The entire skin and about the first joint of his finger was gone,” exclaimed the aghast gal, who reportedly ran away because the scene was “too graphic,” adding, “His facial expression when he was walking is like the pain never kicked in.”
Neither zoo representatives nor police sources were apparently aware of the incident when contacted by the Observer.
However, the Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is currently investigating the incident.
“We will be going down there, and I will be communicating with the National Environment and Planning Agency, who has oversight over Jamaica Zoo,” said Pamela Lawson, head of the animal advocacy group.
In a more serious captive cat attack in March, an employee at a Florida animal sanctuary was mauled by a tiger after entering the animal’s enclosure without authorization.
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