A middle-aged man who was killed by a lion at Accra Zoo in Ghana after climbing a fence into its enclosure, had wanted to steal one of the rare white cubs of a lioness, according to report.
“The intruder was attacked and injured by one of the lions,” Ghana’s state Forestry Commission said in a statement, adding that the unnamed man had died from wounds he sustained in the attack.
Authorities said they suspected that the intruder may have been after at least one of the two lion cubs, which are considered rare and very valuable to poachers because of their unusual light coloring.
The cubs were born at the zoo in November and have been drawing large crowds of spectators, reported BBC.
“The lions have cubs so if you come too close they may feel you are trying to take away their babies,” Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Benito Owusu Bio told reporters.
Only about a dozen white lions exist in the wild, according to the Global White Lion Protection Trust.
Police who responded to the scene were able to safely remove the intruder’s body from the lions’ enclosure and transport it to the local morgue for an autopsy, according to the local outlet 3NewsGH.
“The police are working with the management of the zoo and the forestry commission to get to the bottom of this unfortunate incident,” the Accra Police Service stated.
None of the big cats escaped during the incident and the enclosure remains secure, the official statement said.
The Accra Zoo remained temporarily closed to the public in the wake of the mauling but has since reopened.