The woman who was attacked by a Siberian tiger after getting out of her car at Badaling Wildlife World in Beijing on July 23 is asking for compensation of 2 million yuan (S$414,000) from the zoo, saying visitors were not fully informed of the dangers before entering the park.

The woman, surnamed Zhao, was interviewed by Beijing Times on Wednesday.

It was the first time she has spoken publicly about the incident in which her mother also left the car to drive away the tiger attacking her daughter.

The older woman died after being attacked by a second tiger.

Zhao explained her own exit from the car by saying she had been carsick.

She accused the driver of a patrol car of failing to come to the rescue after her husband sought help.

And there was no safety equipment in the car, she said.

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YouTube screengrabs

The zoo answered the accusation, saying that no one－including the zoo staff－should leave their vehicle in that situation.

Chen Xu, a lawyer specialising in civil disputes, said he is not optimistic that the injured woman will be fully compensated, because “she made an obvious mistake”.

“Compensation would have to be based on evidence that the woman had not made any mistake at the time,” Chen said.

“But the truth is that she got out of the car herself. So I don’t think she will win if she sues the zoo in court.”

The zoo and Zhao’s family have reached an agreement that the zoo will pay 1.25 million yuan as compensation for the death of Zhao’s mother.

But the zoo said it is only 20 per cent to 30 per cent responsible for injuries to Zhao.

The zoo agreed to pay 745,000 yuan to Zhao but rejected payment for mental suffering and future medical treatment.

On Aug 24, the government of Yanqing district, where the zoo is located, released the results of an investigation showing that Zhao triggered the attack by failing to follow safety warnings.

He Bing, a law professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said the zoo could have some liability.

“Making the report is an administrative act,” He said.

“The woman has a right to sue for this money.”

He said a place where tigers live and roam freely should be defined as a dangerous area, and it should take more responsibility for protecting visitors.

Simply telling visitors not to get out of the car is not sufficient, He said.

GUJARAT – A CCTV camera caught a gang in India’s Gujarat state stealing a cow – by forcing the animal into the back of a small white hatchback car, reported the Daily Mail.

Police are now hunting for the gang of cattle rustlers who made a hasty escape after shoving the cow into their car.

A CCTV managed to capture footage of the gang as one of them grapples with the cow, twisting its neck as he forces the animal in with another man.

According to the Daily Mail, the gang homed in on their target after spotting the animal on a quiet street.

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Cownap – thieves in India make off with cow after shoving it into car’s backseat

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YouTube video screengrabs

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The video, accessible on YouTube, was made known to a local vigilante group who then alerted the authorities.

Police tracked the car down and arrested one man, who is now being questioned, according to the Daily Mail.

The missing cow has yet to return from its ride, and there are fears it might have become minced beef.

The Times of India says cattle rustling, known in India as “lifting”, is a worrying phenomenon that is growing. Thousands of cows roam the streets of India and are easy targets for gangs who kidnap them to sell to slaughterhouses.

See also: How many cows can you fit in a Proton Wira?

This article was first published on Oct 14, 2016.
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BEIJING – Archaeologists claim that the latest study has shown that the Terracotta Warriors and Horses in the Emperor Qinshihuang’s mausoleum in China may be inspired by ancient Greeks, say reports.

They said that ancient Greek artisans could have been to the then Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) in the third century BC and trained the local artisans to build the Terracotta Warriors and Horses, according to the reports from BBC and US’s National Geographic.

Besides, archaeologists also discovered that European mitochondrial DNA was found in the Qin Dynasty ruins in China’s Xinjiang, which shows that Westerners may have come to China during the Qinshihuang (China’s first emperor)’s reign.

This is more than 1,500 years earlier than Marco Polo’s journey to China in the 13th century.

BBC and National Geographic have shot a documentary based on these findings, which are derived from archaeologists’ discoveries in the Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum.

Liu Xiuzhen, an archaeologist from the museum said, “We now have evidence that close contact existed between China and the West before the formal opening of the Silk Road.

This is far earlier than we formerly thought.”

Experts said there is evidence from the sculptural style of the Terracotta Warriors, as China didn’t have a tradition of building life-sized human statues before the Qinshihuang tomb was created.

Liu said, “We now believe that the Terracotta Army, the acrobat figurines and the bronze sculptures found on site were inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art.”

In fact, as early as 2013, some British scholars proposed this idea.

Professor Lukas Nickel from the University of Vienna points out that the acrobat figurines recently found at the Qinshihuang tomb also support this theory.

He believes that the Greek sculptures introduced from Central Asia to the Qin Dynasty influenced Emperor Qinshihuang, and said, “I imagine ancient Greek sculptors may have been at the site to train the locals.”

In addition, archaeologists found that the Qinshihuang tomb complex is much bigger than first thought thanks to new technology in detection, and may be around 98 square kilometers.

They also discovered the remains of a young woman, who may be one of the concubines of Qinshihuang.

A young man’s skull with a crossbow bolt embedded in it was also discovered, which is believed to belong to the Emperor Qinshihuang’s eldest son.

The documentary will be aired in the UK and US on Sunday.

More than 200 young cobras recently escaped from a farm in Nanjing city, capital of East China’s Jiangsu province, and more than 50 remained missing by end of Monday (Oct 10).

The local authorities said that the escaped cobras, or monocled cobras specifically, were illegally bred by the Chunyi Animal Breeding Cooperative based in the city’s Luhe district.

The snakes disappeared between August 26 and 29, but it was only on Monday night that the local people found out through social media.

“The farm has been searching for the runaway cobras and has captured or killed more than 150 of them,” said the Luhe government Monday night.

The government discovered the incident after a cobra was found and killed in a villager’s home on Saturday.

Caught on camera: Python vs cobra fight in NTU

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Abishek Abede, Nanyang Technological University Graduate Student Council’s Facebook page, YouTube screengrabs

The farm bought monocled cobra eggs from Shaoguan city of South China’s Guangdong province in early August and incubated about 1,820 cobras, out of which some 1,500 survived.

The farm had neither reported to the government nor got any permission for the breeding business before and after the incubation, according to local authorities, who launched a “carpet search” for the runaway snakes on Tuesday morning.

Officials from the Luhe government’s publicity department said the young cobras, about 20 centimeters long, are not as dangerous as the adult ones. They believe the snakes will probably not survive the upcoming cold winter.

Ecns news agency reported that the farm was shut down and those in charge would “be held responsible for the incident”.

Read also: Do’s and Don’ts when bitten by an animal or insect

Snake-out

Snakes escaping from farms is not uncommon in China, according to past media reports.

In August, a total of 180 baby cobras escaped from a breeding farm in Emei Shan city in Sichuan province. 30 were killed and seven were found dead. Search continued for the rest, reported Xinhua news agency.

The authorities distributed alcohol and realgar, an arsenic sulphide mineral, to residents so they could use them to repel the snakes.

The baby cobras, which measured 16 to 27cm long, were not highly venomous. Those that were caught were sent to a government facility which had proper security measures.

chenj@sph.com.sg

Family dogs fight off killer cobra at Braddell

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Donald Wong, The Straits Times