Woman attacked by a jaguar while takinga selfie at Arizona zoo

She wanted the perfect selfie. So she climbed over a barrier at the Wildlife World Zoo in Arizona to get closer to an enclosure holding a jaguar.

That’s when the big cat reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm with its paw.

One witness, Adam Wilkerson, said he and his mother heard the woman scream Saturday evening and ran to help.

“My mom runs up and takes her water bottle and shoves it through the cage near where the jaguar is, and the jaguar goes to let go of the girl to take the water bottle, and the claw just catches this girl’s sweater,” he recounted.

“So at that point, I see that it’s no longer attached to the girl’s actual arm, only on her sweater, so I grab the girl on her torso, and I pull her back.”

Wilkerson, who captured some of the aftermath on video, added that the woman was “lying on the ground, screaming in agony.”

Shawn Gilleland, a spokesman for the Rural Metro Fire Department, said the woman, who is in her 30s, was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. The woman was not identified.

“There’s no way to fix people crossing barriers,” said zoo owner Mickey Ollson. “That happens occasionally. And we put substantial barriers there, and if people cross them, they can get in trouble.”

On Sunday, the president of the Humane Society of the United States urged zoos to “set a higher standard to protect people and to respect wildlife from a safe distance.”