As one of the first visitors allowed back into Yorkshire Wildlife Park when it reopened on Friday morning, a reporter was able to study the area where Thomas Chapman entered the tiger enclosure and tragically lost his life. Last Saturday afternoon, schizophrenic William Chapman, 24, climbed over a viewing platform barrier and a metal perimeter fence to enter the five-year-old male Siberian tiger Altai's pen.
Despite onlookers trying to grab him, Chapman clambered over the top of the fence, jumped five metres down into the paddock and live-streamed himself on Instagram walking up to the 440-pound Altai as the big cat slept on a raised platform in his two-acre enclosure. The rest is simply awful - and also a damning indictment of some social media users, including US President Donald Trump, who have been posting what they think are funny AI videos and memes about the fatal tiger mauling.
Staff Safety Measures and Tiger Placement
First, one point must be made clear after the visit: it is beyond doubt that the staff at Yorkshire Wildlife Park take the safety of their visitors and their animals incredibly seriously. They have been left shattered and devastated by this whole incident.
The Land of the Tigers enclosure has two paddocks, one each for their two adults - Altai, who moved to Yorkshire Wildlife Park from Dyreparken in Norway in February 2025, and the older female Tschuna, who has been there since 2013. Security guards were present during the visit.
On Friday morning, the two tigers were in opposite paddocks to the ones they were in last Saturday when tragedy struck - which was probably done on purpose so visitors filming could not 'recreate' the tragedy six days later on their phones. On the afternoon Chapman leapt into the paddock with the waterfall, Altai was there. On Friday it was home to Tschuna instead. The tigers are separated so they do not accidentally harm one another.
Walkway Layout and Potential Safety Gap
Stretching across the front of the two adjacent paddocks is a raised walkway which at its peak is around four metres off the ground - one metre below the height of the main metal perimeter fence. However, to an untrained eye, there is a potential issue here which may have aided Chapman in entering the tiger's home.
If you can climb onto the top of the walkway's one-metre-high wooden barrier, the top of the five-metre-high metal perimeter fence is at a 45-degree angle in front of you. The tip of that metal fence is electrified, but it is also about one metre from the wooden walkway.
To put it simply, if you can clamber one metre up that first wooden barrier and leap directly forward, you only have to drop five metres down - without breaking any bones - and you are in the paddock with the tiger. No doubt Yorkshire Wildlife Park have tested this in the past and will do again, while South Yorkshire Police, health and safety officials and the Doncaster Coroner will also be analysing how - and of course, why - Chapman climbed in.
Security Presence and Future Implications
It is also fair to say that you can put a 10-metre-high reinforced steel fence around an enclosure like this but if someone is that determined to get in and put themselves in deadly danger, they will most likely find a way. On Friday there were several security patrolling that walkway - it is not known if they were there last Saturday when Chapman turned up. If not, they may now be there permanently.
But it is also a crying shame if we end up needing squads of security guards patrolling our zoos - places where children wonder at the marvels of nature and enjoy their first glimpses of the planet's most exotic, endangered and treasured animals.
