A viral video captured a determined tiger “attacking” a young boy at the Dublin Zoo as the child posed for a photo for his dad. Fortunately, the tiger’s pounce was thwarted by a wall of glass between the two mammals.
“Lunch Denied,” ABC News quipped in a tweet Monday. The 7-year-old boy’s father posted something similar on his social media after the zoo visit Sunday: “My son was on the menu in Dublin Zoo.”
Some Twitter followers were fascinated by the clip, noting the tiger froze when the boy turned to look at the animal before instantly charging when the child turned back around for the photo.
But others were furious. They complained that the boy’s dad spotted the stalking tiger yet told his son to stay put for the video. The tiger could have been hurt hurling itself against the glass, they complained. Or the boy could have been killed had the glass broken, and then the tiger would have been put down, others noted.
The tweet also triggered debate about zoos.
The boy’s dad, Rob Costello, conceded in an interview on Ireland TV RTE that he “kind of twigged that something was about to happen.” After the attack, his son “got a laugh — it didn’t particularly faze him,” he said. “I kind of laughed hysterically.”
Costello seemed nearly as torn about the event as Twitter followers. “As much as there’s a bit of a laugh, it is also quite sad as well. Obviously there’s great conservation that happens in zoos around the world. But they [the animals] are obviously captive as well, so you do have to consider that as well,” he told RTE.