Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Tiger Attacks at Tippi Hedren's Preserve

A tiger at an animal sanctuary run by actress Tippi Hedren attacked a worker Monday, critically injuring him.

The 40-year-old man was bitten repeatedly at Shambala Preserve, on the edge of the Mojave Desert about 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles, said Art Marrujo, a county Fire Department dispatch supervisor.

The victim was flown to a hospital, said Harlan Boll, Hedren's publicist.

"He's going to be fine; we're waiting to see how he reacts to the antibiotics," said Boll, who had no immediate information on the circumstances around the attack.

Hedren starred in the Alfred Hitchcock horror classic "The Birds," about a town that comes under attack by thousands of birds. She founded the preserve in the early 1970s and lives on the property.

The preserve is home to dozens of endangered big cats, most of them born in captivity and given up by circuses, zoos and private owners who could no longer care for the animals.

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