Photo: Screenshot from Dahe Daily

A video of a tiger biting a water pipe—creating the illusion that it was "spouting spring water"—went viral online, sending daily visitor numbers to the park surging by 2,000 to 3,000 compared with previous periods.

The video, filmed at a wildlife park in Central China's Henan Province, showed the tiger spouting water while standing perfectly still, leading many visitors to initially mistake it for a sculpture, the Zhengzhou-based Dahe Daily reported. 

It was only when the tiger finally moved that the onlookers realzied it was alive — and the tiger had simply bitten into a water pipe, the report said.

Park staff confirmed that the footage was filmed in the free-roaming carnivore zone, which is home to nearly 200 Siberian tigers, Dahe Daily reported.

The tiger in the video is a sub-adult, a stage of life when the animals are naturally very curious and energetic, the staff said.

The staff explained that biting the pipe is a natural exploratory behavior for the tiger. "They treat the pipes as toys to play with and chew on."

On October 4, the day after the video went viral, daily visitor numbers rose by two to three thousand compared with the the three days prior to the National Day holiday surge, according to Dahe Daily. Many visitors came specifically to see the now-famous tiger.

The park has deployed 30 safari buses running in a continuous loop, each carrying up to 24 passengers for a roughly 30-minute tour, the report said. Under staff supervision, visitors can also feed the tigers.

Global Times