Jan Gold expected the evening at Zoo Boise in Idaho to end like any other fundraiser. Instead, a 600 pound Siberian tiger would knock her to the ground and bite into her head.
Gold was attending the Feast for a Beast fundraiser, an event designed to raise money for improvements at the zoo. As a member of the Friends of Zoo Boise board, she was passionate about animals and had helped organize the event.
As the fundraiser was wrapping up, Gold and a small group were given a special invitation to watch a tiger feeding. But when they entered the feeding area, they noticed that something was wrong. The gate to the final enclosure was standing wide open.
As the group moved closer, Taiga, a male Siberian tiger weighing around 600 pounds, suddenly walked in from outside. Gold tried to close the cage door, but the massive animal was already approaching her.
She began backing away carefully, hoping not to frighten him. Then the other people in the group suddenly ran away screaming.
Gold turned around and started moving toward them. That was when Taiga pounced.
The tiger knocked her to the ground, grabbed her from behind and bit into her head. Gold later recalled that her first thought was whether she was going to survive.
Hearing the screams, Sgt. Rich Schnebly, who was also attending the event, rushed toward Gold and fired his pistol to frighten the tiger away. Taiga initially backed off, allowing the officer and zoo manager David Wayne to approach her.
But the tiger soon started moving forward again. A third shot finally frightened Taiga back into his enclosure, where the door was quickly secured.
Gold was taken to the hospital in serious condition. She had severe lacerations to her head and back, a broken leg and nerve damage.
The rescue itself had also left her with another serious injury. One of the bullets fired at Taiga ricocheted off something and struck Gold in the hip, leaving fragments in her body and causing additional nerve damage.
For a time, doctors were unsure whether she would ever walk normally again.
Following the incident, the Boise City Council voted to cover Gold’s medical expenses, including rehabilitation for her injured leg. Despite everything that happened, Gold said she did not hold a grudge against the zoo and viewed the incident as a tragic mistake.
But there was an important lesson hidden inside the attack.
According to environmental studies professor Dr. Philip Nyhus, Gold’s decision to turn around may have changed how the tiger perceived her. By presenting her back and moving away, she may have suddenly appeared like prey.
When confronted by a tiger, experts advise people not to run or turn their backs. Instead, they should try to appear as large as possible, use objects to distract the animal and slowly move away while keeping it in sight.
For Gold, turning around happened in a split second. Had she remained facing Taiga, she might have had enough time to close the enclosure before the situation became dangerous.
Although Gold’s encounter happened inside a zoo, tiger attacks in the wild have also claimed hundreds of lives. Between 2014 and 2022, nearly 500 people were reportedly killed by tigers in India alone, with human encroachment and a shortage of natural prey contributing to many conflicts.
Wild Siberian tigers face a very different danger from humans. Poaching and deforestation have contributed to their decline, with human activity responsible for a significant share of their deaths.
Today, encountering a wild Siberian tiger is extraordinarily rare. The endangered animals have a limited range across Russia, China and parts of the Korean Peninsula, making an encounter outside captivity highly unlikely.
