The tiger escaped after the attack but was tracked down by armed police to a garden, where it was shot and killed. There was no time to wait for a veterinarian, police told MDR, as the area was busy with people.<\/p>\n
![\"MONACO-CIRCUS-FESTIVAL](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gettyimages-909515578.jpg#.jpeg\")
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Carmen Zander performs with a tiger during the gala of the 42nd Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco, in a Jan. 23, 2018 file photo.<\/p>\n
CLAUDE PARIS\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n
The site the animal is believed to have escaped from, in an industrial park in the town of Schkeuditz, is run by Carmen Zander, a former circus tiger trainer, according to MDR. As of last year<\/a>, Zander did not have an animal welfare permit to keep big cats, according to animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA<\/a>).<\/p>\n The tiger was one of eight housed at her enclosure, according to local media. A local rescue center has offered to take the remaining animals, according to MDR.<\/p>\n The BBC cited police as saying an emergency call came in around 12:50 p.m. local time on Sunday, and that officers shot the animal to eliminate any further risk to the public once they found it.\u00a0<\/p>\n “A wake-up call”<\/p>\n The incident was a “tragedy waiting to happen,” PETA representative Peter H\u00f6ffken said in a statement<\/a> released by the group, adding that PETA had repeatedly told local authorities “how negligently Carmen Zander treats her tigers \u2014 including with regard to safety.”<\/p>\n “This has to be a wake-up call,” H\u00f6ffken said.<\/p>\n PETA told local media<\/a> in 2025 that Zander’s tigers were “confined in cramped quarters in their permanent enclosure, in barren wire cages, and deprived of everything that would constitute a species-appropriate tiger life.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Zander did not immediately respond to a CBS News request for comment.<\/p>\n “The enclosure has to go,” local mayor Thomas Druskat told the\u00a0Leipziger Volkszeitung<\/a>\u00a0news outlet. “It’s unthinkable what might have happened if other people had been injured.”<\/p>\n On Zander’s website, she offers people the chance to book an “exclusive tiger petting event” and describes the animals as “tiger mice.”<\/p>\n “I will fulfill your lifelong dream!!!” reads the website. “Touch my beautiful Bengal tigers \u2026 you are standing right next to my 250kg [550lb] powerhouses. You will be speechless!!!”<\/p>\n