A suicidal man leaped from a moving monorail at the Bronx Zoo today to reach its dangerous tiger den, where he became a chew toy for a predatory beast who severed his foot in a horrific mauling, authorities said.
The jumper, identified by sources as David Villalobos, 25, awoke a protective male Siberian tiger when he entered his enclosure around 3:30 p.m.
The 400-pound feline chased, clawed and bit him until he was rescued by zoo personnel.
“The tiger was asleep. But then the tiger started chasing him and it chewed off his foot,” said one worker, who said he saw the attack first-hand.
The monorail driver stopped the tram when he noticed that someone had made the 17-foot-jump. Passengers then watched as the deranged man as hopped over a 16-foot-high chain-link fence to the tiger enclosure.
Some gawkers even videotaped the attack, capturing the blood-curdling screams of the victim.
At least one shocked witness called 911, but emergency responders had to wait for zookeepers to lure away the striped, orange beast named Bachuta before they could care for the bloodied man.
Emergency workers used a fire extinguisher to move the 11-year-old tiger away from Villalobos and into a secure pen.
They then told him to roll under a electrified wire to safety, where he was rushed into a waiting ambulance, said a zoo spokesman.
Villalobos suffered a severed left foot and a punctured lung, but was conscious and talking as he was rushed by ambulance to Jacobi Hospital.
Breheny said Villalobos spent about 10 minutes alone with the tiger, and was in the enclosure for about 30 minutes before he was transported out.
He was in critical condition yesterday evening.
“If not for the quick response by our staff and their ability to perform well in emergency situations, the outcome would have been very different,” said Bronx Zoo Director Jim Breheny “Tigers are extremely capable predators and what they typically do is grab a prey animal by the head or back and it’s over very quickly.”
The area where the attack took place, called Wild Asia, is a wooded, natural-roaming section of the park where animals are separated from one another by chain-link fence.
It’s viewable only by monorail — a half-open, half-enclosed train that runs as high as 50-feet and as low as 4-feet to the ground — and contains no walking paths.
Bachuta, who has been at the zoo for three years, was in a holding pen last night — but he will not be put down.
“The tiger did nothing wrong in this case at all,” said Breheny, who added that Bachuta will soon be back on exhibit.
Villalobos’ Facebook page portrays him as an avid animal-lover, with pictures of big cats like jaguars and lions.
On Thursday, he posted a shot of a mother tiger licking the top of her baby cub’s head.
A quote displayed over an image of adorable foxes reads, “We have more to fear from other people than from other animals.”
This wasn’t the first killing by tiger at The Bronx Zoo.
In 1985, a young zookeeper was killed by a pair of Siberian tigers in the same, Wild Asia part of the zoo.
yoav.gonen@nypost.com