JC Pretorius, who runs the Tau Thaba Lodge in Heilbron in the Free State, said a woman who had taken the visitors to see the big cats at his lodge told him that the boy had apparently been standing too close to the fence when it happened. ''She said that she told them to stay away from the wire,'' said JC Pretorius by telephone. ''The more she said it, the more they wanted to take pictures,'' he said. Before they knew it, the tiger was clawing at the boy.

The electric fence had been switched on but he thinks the tiger might have gotten a fright when he felt the electric pulse and instinctively thought the boy was trying to hurt him.

''Those nails are like knives,'' said Pretorius. ''It is the first time in my 16 years here that something like this has happened,'' he said.

''This is very bad.''

Pretorius does not blame the tiger and has no intention of putting it down after the incident.

Advertisements for the lodge invite visitors to a close encounter with lions and at night they can hear them roar.

EWN reported that the boy is recovering in hospital but his father believes the lodge was negligent.

“The fence was off, that’s why the tiger could touch the fencing and grab the child,” he told EWN.

“The tiger was very strong, he wanted to take the feet through the gate.”

This is that latest in a number of attacks by animals in captivity.

In March, Australian visitor Brenton Smith was bitten on the thigh by a lion who had jumped into the car when he wound his window down at the Lion Park in Honeydew; in April 2015 a boy who took a short cut through a hole in a wire fence while riding his bicycle, was attacked by a cheetah. Game rangers came to his rescue.

In June 2015, Game of Thrones visual effects editor, Katherine Chappell, was killed when a lion attacked her through an open window, also at the Lion Park in Honeydew. Tour guide Pierre Potgieter was injured as he tried to stop the attack.

In August 2015 an elderly woman is attacked through a fence by a cheetah at KwaCheetah in KwaZulu-Natal. In August 2015, young Pietermaritzburg school boy Aiden Fry was attacked through a fence by a cheetah while on a school trip, also at KwaCheetah.

-News24.com