"The five-year-old bear, part of a visiting troupe from the prestigious Russian state circus, was wearing ice skates when he lashed out at his handlers and circus staff before a performance of their "Bears on Ice" show in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

He dragged 25-year-old circus director Dmitry Potapov across the ice rink by his neck and nearly severed his victim's legs.

Mr Potapov died at the scene from his injuries.
...
The bear was later shot dead by police in the Central Asian republic.

The incident was not the first time a visiting Russian bear was involved in a deadly attack in Kyrgyzstan. In 2002 a bear on loan from Russia to the Bishkek city zoo attacked and killed a small child who had reached out to pet it.

In that incident, local experts blamed the animal's aggressive behaviour on its severe malnourishment.

But deadly attacks are surprisingly rare in the country's popular circuses, which often use trained bears for comedic effect.

Training bears to wear and use ice skates and even play ice hockey is a standard stunt for the Russian circus."

tigersprung

"It is evident our surveyors had no tiger charmers in their retinue, for the entries in their field books of attacks made by these animals, either on the persons of their attendants or upon the boats, are very numerous; for instance, an entry dated 1812 runs as follows:—

'Whilst the people were cooking their dinners on the bank of Saugor Island, a tiger sprung upon an old dandie, (sailor) One of my sepoys advanced with a hatchet (with which he had been cutting wood) and is said to have hit the tiger on the head ; the blow however was fatal to himself, for the tiger left the old man who was not much hurt and carried off the sepoy.'

"The Gangetic Delta," The Calcutta Review (1859), v. 32, p. 17