A man who climbed over 18 feet to enter a lion's enclosure was fatally attacked in front of horrified zoo visitors.

Gerson de Melo Machado, 19, was mauled to death after he invaded a lioness' enclosure at Parque Zoobotanio Arruda Camara in João Pessoa, Brazil, on Sunday morning, according to the Brazilian outlet Correio Braziliense .

Machado climbed up the side structure of the lioness' cage and lowered himself into the enclosure by sliding down a tree, as seen in a disturbing video posted on X .

A screen grab from X shows the teen scaling the wall to climb into the lion enclosure.

CPreparado via X

The lioness pounced on Machado as he was descending down the tree. He seemingly tried to escape from the animal before being pulled down to the ground, the video shows.

The zoo will re

See Full Page