A tiger living in Tippi Hedren’s animal sanctuary, Shambala Preserve, bit a caretaker who was cleaning his cage; the man, now in stable condition, was not the feline’s primary caretaker.

The Shambala Preserve was established in 1983 by actress and animal lover Tippi Hedren. It is a an 80-acre wildlife habitat in Acton, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert, between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

The animal sanctuary was witness to an unfortunate accident Monday, as a caretaker cleaning the cage of a 4-year-old, 450-pound Bengal tiger named Alexander was injured, Hedren's publicist, Harlan Boll, said.

Chris Orr, who is not Alexander’s regular caretaker, was cleaning when Alexander jumped on him and bit him. The 40-year-old man was flown to a hospital. He was listed in critical but stable condition, said county Fire Department spokesman Brendon Peart.

“Chris was bitten in the neck, and he had some scratch marks,” Boll said. “He's in stable condition, and we're waiting to see how he reacts to the antibiotics.”

The actress herself talked to the Los Angeles Times and explained that many of the animals who find a refuge in her sanctuary have been abused and come from harrowing backgrounds.

“It's a terrible, terrible thing that has happened. Who knows what happened to this tiger? People have kept them in closets, basements. Two of them were kept in air-conditioning systems.”

Hedren said California Department of Fish and Game officials visited the sanctuary to investigate the attack. “It came walking over to them,” she said of Alexander. “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 to be here.”

Hedren added the tiger did not have a history of violence and that it had probably been bred in the US as an exotic pet.

The Shambala Preserve is home to around 70 endangered exotic big cats: African lions, Siberian and Bengal tigers, leopards, servals, mountain lions and bobcats. The organization’s website says most of these animals were born in captivity, and given up by circuses, zoos and private owners who could no longer care for them.

None of them has ever been in the wild and all depend upon humans for their needs, the website says.

Tippi Hedren, 77, is famous for her work with filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, on 1963’s “The Birds” and 1964’s “Marnie.” She is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith.