Jaguar Attacks Woman After She Crosses Barrier For Photo, Zoo Says

A woman was attacked by a jaguar at an Arizona zoo after witnesses said she crossed a safety barrier to take a selfie, according to the zoo.

The woman, who was not named in local news reports and was described as being in her 30s, was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after the big cat latched onto her arm at Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park on Saturday.

The jaguar did not get out of its enclosure, the park said in a statement.

Graphic video shows the woman screaming in pain with a deep open wound on her left arm.

Park guest Adam Wilkerson, who filmed the video and posted it to social media, said his mom helped free the woman from the cat’s grasp by distracting it with a water bottle.

“My mom runs up and takes her water bottle and shoves it through the cage near where the jaguar is, and the jaguar goes to let go of the girl to take the water bottle,” he told Phoenix station AZ Family.

Another video taken by Wilkerson appears to show the same jaguar chewing on a plastic water bottle inside its enclosure.

Mickey Ollson, the director of Wildlife World Zoo, told ABC 15  the jaguar won’t be harmed because of “human behavior.”

Ollson said it’s the second time that the jaguar has attacked someone who crossed the barrier, however. He said the injuries in the previous incident, which happened about a year or two ago, were minor. 

“They are there for a good reason,” he said of the barriers. “Every time that you have an incident in a zoo, you’re going to double check it and meet with your staff try to figure out a way to stop that incident from happening again. But again, when people do not respect the barriers, there’s always a chance there might be a problem.”