An animal keeper was mauled to death yesterday by a rare white tiger at a wildlife park in New Zealand while visitors watched in horror, police said.

The animal - one of only 120 white tigers in the world - was killed because it wouldn't release the keeper's body, police inspector Paul Dimmery told National Radio.

South African national Dalu Mncube was attacked after he and a colleague entered the cage at Zion Wildlife Park on New Zealand's North Island to clean it, police spokeswoman Sarah Kennett said.

Mncube died at the scene before help could reach him, with serious injuries to his abdomen and lower legs.

"Despite the best efforts of the second keeper and a rapid response from other wildlife park staff, the tiger would not let the park worker go," Kennett said in a statement.

There was "nothing to indicate why it attacked - but the fact is they're wild animals," Dimmery added.

An Auckland man who was with two English friends and saw the keeper being mauled told a Fairfax reporter at the scene that the visitors were in shock after the incident.

"It was very, very frightening," said the man who declined to be named.

Manager Glen Holland, who was not at the park at the time, said Mncube was a very experienced keeper and "fantastic with the cats".

Park spokeswoman Sarah Reed said staff were "devastated".

Victim support staff were called to the scene to help distressed staff and visitors, including eight foreign tourists who witnessed the attack, Kennett said. Their nationalities were not known.

The attack at the park was the second by a white tiger in several months. In February, employee Demetri Price required surgery after he was attacked.

Mncube, the park's senior cat handler, saved his colleague by using his hands to open the tiger's jaws and spraying it with a fire extinguisher. Some reports said the same tiger was involved in the latest attack.

Price, who no longer works at the park, told TVOne's Close Up program yesterday that Mncube "got the tiger off me" after he was bitten in the knee and "had a great ability with animals".

Zion Wildlife Gardens are well known in New Zealand as the home of the Lion Man television series, which followed the work of Craig Busch, who was dismissed from the park controlled by his mother last year.

"It is a terrible personal blow for me as I knew the keeper well," Busch said. "Obviously I also know all the animals at the park which are owned by my wildlife trust, and I am deeply upset at the news of this attack."

The park, located near the northern city of Whangarei, has 42 rare lions and tigers - four of which are white tigers - in large wire-cage enclosures that include trees and grassy areas.

In another incident last year, Scottish teenager Lisa Baxter was left scarred after she put her hands through a hole in the fence and a white lion bit her.

(China Daily May 31, 2009)