A stage’s metal netting failed at a circus in Russia, letting a tiger jump into the audience, with no one hurt.
The incident took place in Rostov-on-Don, 600 miles south of Moscow, on Sunday.
Video taken by a witness and shared with Russian news site 161.ru shows three tigers and two trainers on stage. A circle holding up metal netting fell, startling the tigers, one of which jumped onto the circle and into the crowd.
The audience avoided the tiger, and handlers corralled it and the other tigers back into their enclosures, the Rostov regional branch of the Russian national police told state-owned news agency TASS.
Authorities did not specify whether the tigers from the Dogavluk Dynasty Circus were Siberian tigers, native to the far eastern parts of Russia, or a different subspecies from South or Southeast Asia.
“The animal wasn’t acting aggressively. The tiger didn’t attack anyone, but the very fact that this wild animal was among people certainly created panic. The animal, on the contrary, moved away from the crowd, in the opposite direction,” witness Olga Petrenko told TASS.
The Rostov branch of the Investigative Committee of Russia said on the social media site VKontakte that the circus is under criminal investigation for “provision of services that do not meet safety requirements,” as translated from Russian by Google.
The Dogavluk Dynasty Circus declined to comment to TASS and 161.ru.
