Toronto Zoo investigates after woman jumps tiger's fence to retrieve hat

The Toronto Zoo is investigating after a video surfaced online appearing to show a woman jumping over a protective fence to recover a hat that fell inside a tiger's pen.

In thevideo posted on YouTubeonSaturday, thewoman can be seen climbing down the fence and reaching to grab the hat, while atiger, separated by a second fence, lunges towardher.

After recovering the hat, the woman hops back over toward a group of onlookers.

"You're a moron, you're a moron," a man can be heard shouting. "You're a bad example to everyone else's kids."

Another woman can then be seen interveningto break up the argument.

"She jumped into a tiger cage. Are [you] kidding me?" the man can be heard saying in response.

Toronto Zoo spokespersonJennifer Tracey told CBC News that shelearned of the incident through the YouTube video and that the zooisseeking witnesses who can help explain what happened.

"It was very irresponsible of this individual to jump over the boardwalk and [she] could have easily injured herself by exciting the animal in this way," Tracey said. "The situation could have been much worse."

No zoo staff wereat the tiger's pen when the incident occurred, Tracey said.

The staff member assigned to the tiger's pen also watches over other animals in the Indo-Malayanarea, such as snow leopards andthe zoo'sIndian rhino. According to Tracey, that staff memberwould have likely been at another pen whenit happened.

"It's not unusual that visitors may drop things [inside an animal's pen], but when they do, they should notify zoo staff because they have the necessary equipment to help retrieve it," she said.