A 40-year-old guy in eastern China went to the zoo with his family and a few friends over the weekend and didn’t want to pay for a ticket.  So, he and another guy decided to sneak in by scaling a fence.  Their families all paid to get in, but they didn’t.

They managed to get through some wire netting.  Then one of them climbed a nine-foot fence . . . then another nine-foot fence while the other guy hung back.

And unfortunately, the second fence he climbed was part of the TIGER enclosure.  And several tigers ended up MAULING him to death.

It’s not clear if he knew it was the tiger enclosure or not, but apparently there were plenty of signs up.

Zookeepers had to shoot one of the tigers, and used firecrackers to scare the other ones off.  But it still took about an hour to get to him, and he didn’t make it.

Four people tried to sneak into the same zoo back in 2006, and almost got killed by a bunch of lions.

(Telegraph / South China Morning Post)