Two victims of a lethal tiger attack were goading the big cats at a US zoo shortly before one of the animals escaped and mauled them, a witness has claimed.
Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children on Christmas Day, said she saw four young men at the big-cat enclosure. She told a US newspaper three of them were teasing the lions just before the 350-lb feline's bloody rampage that left 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr dead.
The claim comes as the zoo re-opened on Wednesday - nine days after Sousa Jr was killed and two of his friends were injured by the four-year-old Siberian tiger, Tatiana, which was later shot dead by police.
Mrs Miller told the San Francisco Chronicle: "The boys, especially the older one, were roaring at them. He was taunting them. "They were trying to get that lion's attention.
"The lion was bristling, so I just said, 'Come on, let's get out of here' because my kids were disturbed by it."
She said Sousa - whom she later recognized from his photo in the newspaper - was not heckling.
Miller, who said she visits the zoo with her relatives every Christmas, said the young men stood out because she has seen mostly families there.
The young men started roaring at the lions and acting "boisterous" to get their attention, said Miller, who added that she watched the four for around five minutes. "It was why we left," she told the newspaper. "Their behaviour was disturbing. "They kept doing it."
She added: "[Sousa] wasn't roaring. He wasn't taunting them. "He kept looking at me apologetically like, 'I'm sorry, I know we are being stupid.'"
Although authorities have said Sousa was accompanied only by brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, Miller said four young men were together when she came across them.
But Mark Geragos, a lawyer for the Dhaliwals, angrily denied that his clients teased the animals. He said: "It's unconscionable. "They're doing nothing but a calculated attack on these victims when in actuality the zoo security didn't do what they should have been doing after the attack."
He also dismissed reports of the victims throwing rocks at the tiger as "just not true."
San Francisco police Inspector Valerie Matthews said investigators had talked to Miller but have not yet been able to corroborate her account of a fourth person with the victims at the zoo. "I don't know if what they did was any more than what kindergartners do at the zoo every day," Matthews said.
The zoo now features new "Protect the Animals" signs asking visitors to leave the animals alone, and portable loudspeakers to remind visitors to leave promptly at closing time. Zoo officials also said that over the next 30 days they will build a reinforced-glass barrier on top of the tiger grotto's dry moat wall.
It would be at least 19 feet tall and feature viewing holes. The zoo was criticized over the size of its wall at the time of the attack. It comes after police said they found an empty vodka bottle in the car that was used by the victims to go to the zoo.
They also said results of toxicological tests performed on Sousa, who was killed by the tiger, have not yet been returned.
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