Caretaker attacked at an animal sanctuary founded by Melanie Griffith's mother

A caretaker has been attacked in a tiger attack at an animal sanctuary founded by Melanie Griffith's mother.

40-year-old Chris Orr was mauled by a 450 pound Bengal Tiger at Tippi Hedren's Shambala Preserve in L.A. yesterday (3 Dec) afternoon.

Orr, who has worked at Shambala for 20 years, suffered a bite to the neck and a number of scratches.

The worker is in a critical but stable condition, a Los Angeles County fire department spokesman said.  In an interview, Hedren told a US paper that the caretaker was 'jumped' by the tiger as he was cleaning the animal's enclosure.

The tiger in question is a 4-year-old male called Alexander. Hedren defended the tiger, and believes this was the result of the way it was treated before it was rescued.

She said: "What makes these animals so dangerous is for no reason at all this kind of accident can happen. It isn't the tiger's fault. It is the fault of the people breeding these animals in the first place that leads them here."

Hedren, famous for her role in Alfred Hithcock's horror classis, 'The Birds' said the tiger doesn't have a history of violence, describing him as a "mutt" that was probably bred in the US as a pet.

The attack echoes an incident at Kern County sanctuary in California where a chimp attacked its former owner. St. James Davis suffered critical injuries when he went to see the animal to celebrate its 39th birthday.