This Is Why You Stay in Your Car at the Safari Park

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Some rules are meant to be broken, but not if they’re printed on a sign at the entrance to a wild animal enclosure. Follow those rules.

A Chinese woman was killed by a Siberian tiger in a Beijing animal park this past weekend after she left her vehicle to save her daughter, who was almost instantly mauled after leaving the vehicle seconds earlier.

According to the New York Times, the woman who first left the vehicle may have been arguing with her husband. In a security camera video of the attack, the women leaves the passenger side of the vehicle, walks around to the driver’s side, and speaks to her husband through his partially opened door.

Within seconds, the woman is attacked and dragged off by a tiger. Her husband and mother give chase. While the woman survived the attack, her mother was killed by another tiger while fighting the first one.

Badaling Wildlife World safari park has a bad history of deadly attacks. The NYT report states that an employee was killed by an elephant in March, and a security guard was killed by a tiger in 2014. Seven years ago, a young man was killed after using the park as a shortcut.

Unless the only threat in the animal enclosure is the risk of soft, cuddly and affectionate creatures rubbing against your unprotected ankles, never leave your vehicle in one of these parks.

[Image: Mobilus in Mobili/ Flickr]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Bkojote Allright, actual person who knows trucks here, the article gets it a bit wrong.First off, the Maverick is not at all comparable to a Tacoma just because they're both Hybrids. Or lemme be blunt, the butch-est non-hybrid Maverick Tremor is suitable for 2/10 difficulty trails, a Trailhunter is for about 5/10 or maybe 6/10, just about the upper end of any stock vehicle you're buying from the factory. Aside from a Sasquatch Bronco or Rubicon Jeep Wrangler you're looking at something you're towing back if you want more capability (or perhaps something you /wish/ you were towing back.)Now, where the real world difference should play out is on the trail, where a lot of low speed crawling usually saps efficiency, especially when loaded to the gills. Real world MPG from a 4Runner is about 12-13mpg, So if this loaded-with-overlander-catalog Trailhunter is still pulling in the 20's - or even 18-19, that's a massive improvement.
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  • MaintenanceCosts You expect everything on Amazon and eBay to be fake, but it's a shame to see fake stuff on Summit Racing. Glad they pulled it.
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