Nothing More Than a Piece of Meat

"He's always scared that there are tigers under the bed at night, so this confirmed his suspicions," Chari said. "Now he wants the light on, and he wants me to go in with him."

Nonetheless, he said he feels more unnerved than Krishna does.

"He said when we left the zoo, 'The next time, let's see the penguins being fed instead of a tiger eating a woman.' I did not want to scare him by saying that this was unusual."

If Tatiana behaved the way Krishna thought a tiger would act, her savagery was also in line with what big-cat experts expect and fear.

"They can inflict real severe damage, if not kill you, because they are trained to do that," said Ronald Tilson, director of conservation at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, near Minneapolis. "They are unpredictable and they have all of the accessories to get the job done. Anything can set them off. They can wake up having just a bad hair day. And they see mammals as nothing more than a piece of meat."