A shocking video shows the moment a zookeeper is fatally attacked and eaten alive by lions after entering their cage to “impress his girlfriend.”
The guard, named F. Iriskulov, 44, unknowingly captured his final moments on camera as he filmed himself entering the lions’ cage before being mauled.
Footage shows him opening a padlock at the enclosure where he works at a private zoo in Parkent, Uzbekistan, at 5 a.m. on December 17 during his night shift.
The three beasts seem passive at first, sitting calmly in the far corner of the enclosure.
Suddenly, the beast jumps and the man steps back in obvious surprise before the animals slowly approach him.
He repeatedly utters the name of one of the lions: “Simba”, before telling the animal: “Simba, shut up.”
He apparently recorded the video to send to his girlfriend, defiantly turning the camera to show his face while surrounded by the lions.
The keeper even pets one of the animals when it comes worryingly close to it, suggesting that they know each other.
But immediately after touching the animal’s mane, in an apparent sign of the horrors to come, the lion licks its lips and the man appears to retreat momentarily toward the metal door.
The three beasts seem passive at first, sitting calmly in the far corner of the enclosure.
The keeper pets one of the animals while getting worryingly close to it during the video.
The 44-year-old apparently recorded the video to send to his girlfriend, turning the camera to show his face while surrounded by the lions.
The lions begin to stalk around the keeper, who seems unaware of the danger they pose to him.
Then, just two minutes after he opened the door and entered the cage, the video takes a heartbreaking turn, with one of the lions launching an attack on the unassuming guardian.
He lets out piercing screams as the animals overtake him, the camera still on.
The video fades out, but the chilling audio of her screams continues, as she continues to plead: ‘Shut up, shut up…’.
The footage then cuts away, but reports say the lions then devoured the guard.
The beasts “ripped the skin off the guard’s face,” according to Russian media reports.
Rescuers tranquilized two of the lions and shot the third to death after the fatal attack.
An official statement said: “The lions killed him and partially consumed his body.”
The man’s remains were found by other zoo workers just four hours after the attack, it was revealed.
Horrific images, too graphic to publish, show what little remained of the man’s bloodied body.
The zookeeper appears in a social media photo posing with a lion cub.
Uzbek media reported at the time that the man had been mauled by the three African lions after his cage was accidentally left open, and the animals were able to get out of their cage and into the outside courtyard.
Authorities launched an investigation into the incident at that time, and all animal enclosures were searched and secured.
‘As a result of the measures taken, the lions were returned to a special cage. No other people in the surrounding area were injured. “There is currently no danger to the local population,” the Department of the Interior said in a statement.
Iriskulov had previously shared photos on social media posing with a lion cub at the wildlife park.
According to local media, the zoo is home to 10 adult African lions, five lion cubs, a brown bear, an eagle, a cheetah and other non-predatory mammals and birds.
The park has been open since June 2019 and is located on just over two acres of land.