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 ||||| 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
– 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.)