Man dies after jumping into Siberian tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park

CBS News posted a YouTube video titled "Man dies after jumping into tiger's enclosure". The channel's description says the Siberian tiger exhibit at Yorkshire Wildlife Park is still closed days after a man jumped into its enclosure, and names correspondent Tom Hanson.

Marie Miller, a visitor that day, gave the detail now travelling with the story. "The man who I saw on the bridge with his earpods in dancing was happily enjoying seeing the tiger," she said. He asked a stranger to photograph him with the animal in the background, according to her account. Local reporting has named him William Chapman. He died at the scene on Saturday, 10 October.

Ella Ford, 24, from the Wirral, told the BBC what came next. He "climbed up onto the barriers," she said, while a woman close by tried to talk to him. Then "he jumped in and crawled in front of the tiger, where the tiger was perched and just lay there." Ford said the tiger grabbed him and he was "shouting for help." Chapman was heard shouting "stop," The Guardian reported. The paper said the incident lasted only a couple of minutes.

South Yorkshire Police said he had been at the park alone. "It is not believed that the man who died at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park was being accompanied by anybody," a force spokesperson told the BBC. Emergency services were called around 1:30 to 1:35 p.m. BST after reports a man had climbed in from the high walkway, the BBC and Associated Press reported. Two ambulances and an air ambulance were deployed. Tia Hanson, another visitor, said: "There were loads of police and ambulance people and a stretcher in the enclosure as well." She added: "It wasn't nice – there were lots of people who looked really upset. They put up all sort of black tarpaulin so you couldn't really see."

The tiger was Altai, a five-year-old male Amur tiger of about 200 kilograms. The park puts the average male weight at 160 to 190 kilograms. He arrived from Dyreparken in Norway in February 2025 under the EAZA European Endangered Species Programme to join resident tigress Tschuna. Amur tigers, also called Siberian tigers, number around 500 in the wild. Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, opened in 2009 across about 100 acres and holds some 500 animals of 100 species. Land of the Tigers, a purpose-built two-acre reserve, opened in 2011. Some accounts describe its raised walkway as 300 metres long; others put it at 150 metres.