A video has emerged online in China showing a live donkey being pushed into a zoo's tiger enclosure, as shocked visitors look on.

Men in red raincoats can be seen in the footage forcing the donkey down a ramp from the back of a truck, before it falls into water on the edge of the tiger compound at Changzhou zoo in eastern China.

The animal is seen desperately trying to cling on before it lands in the water below - where two tigers are waiting.

The video only shows the start of the incident, but according to local media reports the donkey died after it was repeatedly mauled by the tigers over a period of half an hour.

The men also tried to throw a goat into the enclosure too but were stopped by visitors and security staff, the South China Morning Post reported.

An official from the zoo said a shareholder involved in a dispute with the zoo was responsible for the incident.

The shareholder apparently arranged for a group of men to take some of the zoo’s animals and sell them.