Spread the love
Post Views: 22

Nature has struck back in Africa, with lions on a South African game reserve killing and eating a gang of suspected rhino poachers – while popular Aussie TV vet and celebrity, Dr Chris Brown, then made a stinging comment about the gang’s gruesome fate.

Rangers in the Sibuya game reserve, near the town of Kenton-on-Sea in the country’s Eastern Cape province, made the grisly discovery last week.

Investigations are underway to determine whether the human remains are those of two, three or more people. The victims were almost certainly poachers because a high-powered rifle fitted with a silencer was found at the scene, alongside wire cutters and a long-handled axe.

Axes and saws are commonly used to hack off the slain rhino’s horn, which is viewed by some people in Asia as an aphrodisiac, even though it isn’t.

In a statement on Sibuya reserve’s Facebook page, owner Nick Fox said the suspected poachers entered the reserve late on Sunday night or early on Monday morning and blundered into a large, hungry pride of lions.

Nature took its course. “One of our guys found what he thought was a soccer ball,” Fox told a news outlet. “It turned out to be a skull.”

In a comment to AFP news agency, Fox added: “We’re not sure how many [poachers] there were – there’s not much left of them.”

Fox said several lions needed to be tranquilised before the remains could be recovered and police had now mounted extra patrols in case any of the poachers had escaped the fate of their accomplices and were still at large. Fox said no harm would come to the lions over what they had done.

Rhino poaching has increased in African game reserves in recent years to feed demand for rhino horn in parts of Asia. Poaching is a risky business as well as illegal.

Although rhino horn is made of the same substance as claws or human fingernails and is ineffectual as a medicine, it is used in various traditional remedies popular in Asia. Poachers are thought to have killed about 7000 rhinos over the past decade in South Africa alone, mainly for that reason.

Big game is a mainstay of African tourism and poaching directly threatens it.

Some view the ghastly end of the poaching gang as karma and consider that it served the gang right.

Popular Aussie TV vet and celebrity, Dr Chris Brown (who is, incidentally, one of the very few people to have been bitten by a lion in Africa and lived to tell the tale) made his views clear on Twitter. The poachers had discovered that “karma has a way of biting you”, Brown tweeted.

Others feel similarly. “We haven’t been to your reserve yet but will make a point to come and visit you!” wrote Zelmé Kimble of South Africa on the Sibuya game reserve’s Facebook page.

“Thank you for not euthanizing your majestic lions,” she added. “They deserve a treat for a job well done! We hope that your rhinos are all safe and sound.”

Written by Peter Needham