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Men who entered the Sibuya reservation in South Africa illegally were devoured by lions. According to the owner of the park, there were at least three and the weapons found on the scene suggest that the men were poachers intending to attack rhinoceros.
Men were devoured by a pack of lions in the Sibuya Reserve, South Africa, while they seemed to be tracking several rhinos. Individuals having been dismembered following the attack, the doubt remains as to their number and their motivations. Nevertheless, according to Nick Fox, the owner of the reserve, there is no doubt: the men who entered his park were rhinoceros poachers.
"They were armed, among others, with powerful rifles with silencers, an ax, cutting pliers and provisions for several days" he detailed in a Facebook post. "Either all the attributes of a gang of poachers who want to kill rhinos to take their horns."
Thousands of rhinos are slaughtered in Africa every year for their horns, popular attributes followers of traditional medicine in China or Vietnam. There remains, in all, on the African continent, 5,000 specimens of black rhinoceros, a species considered critically endangered. The white rhinos are a little more numerous but the same threat weighs on the population, of which 80% is approximately 20.000 specimens, is concentrated in South Africa.
An investigation is in progress
The clothes as well as the parts dismembered bodies of poachers suggest that there were three. The attack took place on July 2, at the first light of dawn. "We do not know exactly how many they were, there is not much left" says Nick Fox. "They found themselves in the middle of a group of 6 lions, so they did not have a lot of time to react."
A police investigation is under way and will help to find out more about the l identity and motivations of the three individuals. Ballistic tests will also be conducted on weapons found in the reserve to determine their provenance and their potential involvement in other actions related to poaching. "It is a real relief that they did not have our rhinos", tells Nick Fox to the journalists of Herald Live .
"We have already been victims of poachers two years ago, exactly at the same time of year ". A bloody episode: two rhinos killed on the spot, while a third died, later, as a result of serious injuries caused by poachers. "Although we are saddened by the loss of all human life, these poachers came to kill animals" Nick Fox concludes. "This sends a very clear message to all poachers: you will not always win it."
This is not the first time that such an incident has occurred in South Africa. Last February, a 46-year-old man, also suspected of poaching, had already been found devoured by lions on a reserve near the famous Kruger National Park.
See also:
Sudan, the last male Northern white rhinoceros, died in Kenya
Javan rhinoceros: the birth of two babies revealed by photographic traps in Indonesia
A rhinoceros poacher sentenced to 20 years in prison in South Africa
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