A zookeeper has died after a white tiger mauled him at a zoological park in the city of Kagoshima. 
 
 Akira Furusho, 40, was found collapsed and bleeding from the neck in a cage by a colleague on Monday after the Hirakawa Zoological Park closed for the day at 5 p.m., according to rescue workers. He was confirmed dead after being taken to a hospital. 
 
 A veterinarian at the zoo used a tranquilizer gun to sedate the 5-year-old male tiger Riku, which was found in the same area as Furusho, the park said Tuesday. The tiger is about 1.8 meters in length and weighs about 170 kilograms. 
 
 The zoo was scheduled to remove the tiger from display to his sleeping chamber at the time. Its manual forbids a keeper from entering the display cage before a tiger has been moved into its sleeping chamber. 
 
 Police are investigating how the zoological park looks after the four white tigers it keeps, while labor authorities interviewed some zoo workers to see if the zoo had possibly violated a law on safety at work. 
 
 The zoo opened in 1972 and is run by a public corporation under contract with the municipal government. 
 
 It was open Tuesday but the area around the tigers' display cage was restricted. 
 
 "I was surprised to learn about the accident in the news," said Yukihiro Kawabata, 39, who visited the zoo with his family. "We had been looking forward to seeing white tigers, so it is too bad." 
 
 © KYODO ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption It's not clear what triggered the white tiger's attack (file photo) 
 
 A rare white tiger has mauled a zookeeper to death in its enclosure at a zoo in Japan, officials say. 
 
 Akira Furusho, 40, was found bleeding from the neck in the tiger's cage at the zoo in the southern city of Kagoshima. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead. 
 
 The male tiger, named Riku, was sedated with a tranquiliser before rescue workers and police arrived. 
 
 It is to be kept alive following a request from the victim's family. 
 
 "We plan not to kill Riku and continue to keep it because the bereaved family asked us to do so," said Takuro Nagasako, a zoo official said, quoted by the AFP news agency. 
 
 The attack took place late on Monday at the Hirakawa Zoological Park in Kagoshima. 
 
 It is thought it happened as Mr Furusho went to clean the tiger's enclosure. Tigers are normally removed from the display pen to a separate area before staff enter. 
 
 Police are now investigating how the zoo looks after the four white tigers it keeps. 
 
 In 2017, a British zookeeper was killed by a tiger in its enclosure in a Cambridgeshire zoo while in Russia, a keeper survived a tiger attack in the city of Kaliningrad. 
 
 White tigers 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption White tigers are an endangered species ||||| (CNN) A keeper killed by a tiger at a Florida zoo this month broke the rules when she entered the big cat's enclosure, zoo officials said. 
 
 But questions still remain about the circumstances surrounding the death of the lead tiger keeper at the Palm Beach Zoo. 
 
 The day of the attack, the zoo's spokeswoman said Konwiser had "absolutely" not done anything out of the ordinary when she entered the area where tigers eat and sleep. 
 
 "This was part of a daily procedure that takes place, this was something that was done every single day. She was efficient and proficient in doing this task and an unfortunate situation occurred," Naki Carter said. 
 
 But in a statement released Friday, a week after her death, Andrew Aiken, the zoo's president, said Konwiser had violated zoo policy. 
 
 She "entered that same portion of the night house after it was clearly designated as accessible by a tiger," Aiken said. 
 
 "Under Palm Beach Zoo policy, zoo employees are never allowed to enter a tiger enclosure to which the animal has access." 
 
 Death 'no mystery' 
 
 "There is absolutely no mystery as to how Stacey Konwiser died," according to a statement posted in a new FAQ section on the Palm Beach Zoo 's website. 
 
 "The question is: why did a deeply talented and experienced zookeeper, fully aware of the presence of a tiger and knowledgeable of our safety protocols, enter a tiger enclosure into which a tiger had access?" it said. 
 
 The statement also clarified that although the night house has video surveillance cameras, they were not recording at the time, and are only activated when the zoo has newborn tiger cubs. 
 
 "Why or how this could possibly occur is the subject of five ongoing investigations, including our own," Aiken said in his statement. 
 
 The zoo said the afternoon that Konwiser entered the enclosure, she was alone, which is in compliance with the nationalized standards from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. 
 
 CNN's attempts to reach the zoo for further comments were not immediately successful. 
 
 No guarantee 'cat won't kill you' 
 
 Dave Salmoni, a large predator expert and TV host for Animal Planet, said "there is no way to ever guarantee that a cat won't kill you." 
 
 "Almost never would you allow a keeper to have access to a dangerous predator ... If she's given these keys then she has a history of perfect gate-locking procedure," he added. 
 
 Konwiser had worked at the zoo for three years and was "very experienced" with tigers, zoo officials said. 
 
 Stacey Konwiser with her husband, Jeremy Konwiser. 
 
 Salmoni said no matter the relationship between Konwiser and the tiger, once she entered that enclosure, "if this was something unusual, the tiger would have looked at her like a ball of yarn to play with." 
 
 "Once she started to struggle or moved quickly, that tiger's primal hunter instinct would have then come into play," he said. 
 
 Threats against tiger 
 
 The rare tiger, one of four at the facility, is held in a contained area where the animals are fed and sleep. 
 
 The male tiger was tranquilized after the attack and remains at the facility. Zoo officials have declined to provide information on the tiger, including its name. 
 
 "Identifying the animal only serves to stigmatize and potentially places the tiger in harm's way," the zoo said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. It said it has received threats against the animal. 
 
 Zoo officials have said the tiger was off-exhibit at the time and no guests saw what happened. 
 
 Recent attacks by big cats in captivity 
 
 • In January, a keeper was severely injured at In January, a keeper was severely injured at an Australian zoo founded by the late wildlife conservationist Steve Irwin 
 
 • In June 2015, police shot and killed In June 2015, police shot and killed a white tiger that killed a man in Tbilisi, Georgia , after severe flooding allowed hundreds of wild animals to escape the city zoo. 
 
 • In 2007, In 2007, an escaped Siberian tiger attacked and killed one zoo patron and injured two others in a cafe at the San Francisco Zoo.
– A rare attack from a rare tiger killed a zookeeper in Japan on Monday. Officials say 40-year-old Akira Furosho was found bleeding from the neck in a cage in the Hirakawa Zoological Park in the southern city of Kagoshima, the BBC reports. They believe he was attacked by Riku, one of the zoo's four white tigers. The 375-pound animal, a 5-year-old male, was sedated with a tranquilizer gun. Police are investigating procedures at the zoo, where the manual states that keepers are not allowed to enter display cages until tigers have been moved to their sleeping chambers, reports the Japan Times. (Last year, two white tiger cubs killed a novice zookeeper in India.)