Siberian Tiger Mauls Canadian Zookeeper, Man Expected To Live

A 51-year-old zookeeper in Canada is expected to live after being attacked by a captive Siberian tiger Thursday at a zoo in Quebec.

The female tiger attacked the male zookeeper in the morning as he went into the tiger's enclosure to do cleaning. The tiger was meant to be in its nocturnal pen, but was still in the daytime area when the zookeeper went inside, the International Business Times reported.

Colleagues of the zookeeper managed to pull the man out of the area and the tiger reportedly went to another area of the pen on its own, but not before the cat was able to inflict deep wounds on the man's neck.

"We're trying to understand how this happened. Right now our main focus is towards the employee and his family, obviously, and also for the rest of the employees that are quite disturbed by the event," said Christine Gagnon, the zoo's director of conservation and education, according to Canadian news outlet CBC News.

Normally the zoo's Siberian tigers -- two males, one female and two cubs -- are kept in their nighttime enclosures while their daytime pen is cleaned. The zoo is reportedly investigating why this was not the case and are waiting to speak with the zookeeper, who CBC reports is the only witness.

The unnamed zookeeper is expected to live.

"Right now he's at the hospital. His life is not in danger," said Gagnon, "We are really lucky for that."

A female Siberian tiger, or Panthera tigris altaica , can weigh more than 300 pounds.  According to the Siberian Tiger Project, there are about 350 adult Siberian tigers, also called Amur tigers, left in the wild, with 95 percent of them living in Russia's far east.

Earlier this month a woman was mauled to death by a captive African lion while she was interning at a wild cat sanctuary in Northern California. The lion was killed by police officers.