Chinese tourist attacked by bear after ignoring warnings not to feed animals at wildlife park
Driver was ‘scared senseless’ after being mauled when he wound down window
A Chinese man was attacked by a black bear at a wildlife park after he attempted to feed it out of his car window.
The tourist, only identified by his surname Chen, suffered a serious bite on his left arm after he opened the passenger window a few inches to throw some food at two bears that surrounded his car in the Malay bear enclosure at Badaling Wildlife World near Beijing.
In a horrifying moment captured on camera, one of the bears managed to force the window down all the way.
The Beijing Evening News reported that Chen had wanted one of his friends in the car to take a photo of him feeding the bear.
He pressed down hard on the button it an effort to close the window, but it would not budge. The bear was only a few inches away.
“At that point, we were all scared senseless,” he said.
He managed to fight the bear off after it bit his arm, and drove off to another part of the sanctuary where he was able to alert the park wardens to what happened.
Visitors at the 6,000-acre wildlife sanctuary had earlier been warned by staff not to open their car windows in the animal enclosures, but Chen decided to do so after watching other people feed the animals.
“I know it was wrong, but at that point I was too scared and in pain,” he said.
The wardens told him to go to the park’s tourist centre, where his wound was disinfected.
Chen was rushed to hospital in Beijing soon afterwards, where he received vaccines for rabies and tetanus.
He told the Beijing Evening News that he regretted his mistake, but was also upset by the fact the park rangers did not appear very sympathetic towards him.
Chen is currently recovering from the ordeal at home. He has been contacted by park representatives.
The manager of Badaling Wildlife World, only named as Li, told the Beijing Evening News that visitors should only feed animals that were not in the “wild beast enclosures”.
Warnings state that visitors are not allowed to leave their cars at any point.
He added that the high number of tourists during the summer means that staff are under a lot of pressure, and that the park is closely monitoring Chen’s condition.
This is not the first time that a visitor has been mauled by a wild animal at Badaling Wildlife World, which is located near the most popular section of the Great Wall.
CCTV footage captured the daughter being dragged away by a tiger, before her mother ran over to help her. Staff at the wildlife sanctuary managed to rescue the family, but the mother did not survive.
Earlier this year staff at the park had to intervene to protect a visitor who was photographed standing with his head and torso sticking out of the sunroof.
