This male lion was photographed in a game reserve in South Africa. Another reserve was the scene of a deadly encounter this week.
3 Alleged Rhino Poachers Eaten by Lions
Bread, weapons, and human remains were found scattered around the lions’ camp in a South African game reserve.
Late on July 3rd, the weapons and body parts of three alleged would-be rhino poachers were found in Sibuya, a South African game reserve. It appears that they were eaten by a pride of lions, according to local reports.
Reportedly, dogs in an anti-poaching unit reacted to something unusual on an early-morning patrol on Monday, but it wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon that a skull was seen in the lions’ camp. That’s when reserve owner Nick Fox went out with an anti-poaching unit to investigate.
There, they saw supplies—bags, guns, and bread—scattered everywhere. “Human remains were also clearly visible,” Fox told South African news outlet HeraldLIVE. It was too dark on Tuesday evening to safely investigate further, so on Wednesday the unit returned and tranquilized the lions so that they could comb the scene. (Read about the women fighting poaching in South Africa.)
Fox and others found that only a skull and a few pieces of pelvic bone remained of the people who were apparently mauled. They believe that there were three men because they found three pairs of shoes and gloves. The gear gathered from around the lions’ camp provides evidence of illegal intent, Fox’s team said.
“They were armed with, amongst other things, a high-powered rifle with a silencer, an axe, wire cutters, and had food supplies for a number of days—all the hallmarks of a gang intent on killing rhino and removing their horns,” Fox told local outlet RNEWS. Helicopters have been called in to scan the thick bush for survivors who may be hiding. (Also see: “Why Did Lion Kill Tourist in South Africa?”)
Inside the Deadly Rhino Horn Trade
Poachers killed this black rhinocerous for its horn with high-caliber bullets at a water hole in South Africa’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. They entered the park illegally, likely from a nearby village, and are thought to have used a silenced hunting rifle. Black rhinos number only about 5,000 today.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
A four-man antipoaching team permanently guards the last remaining male northern white rhino on Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya in July 2011.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
A security team member (displaying his “antipoaching unit” tattoo) holds a rhino’s horn at the ranch of John Hume—the world’s top rhino farmer—in Klerksdorp, South Africa. The horns of
… Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
Veterinarian Johan Marais (left) prepares to try out a novel treatment—rubber bands used in human surgery—to close a gaping hole in this female rhino’s face made in May 2015 by poachers hacking out her horn. The rhino, named Hope, died more than a year later of a bacterial infection in her intestine.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
A game rancher near Port Elizabeth who couldn’t afford the high cost of protecting his rhinos from poachers sold this one to a more secure operation. The rhino, blindfolded and wearing
… Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
Lulah’s mother was killed by poachers in Kruger National Park. She now lives at Care for Wild Africa, a sanctuary specializing in rhinos. Staff member Dorota Ladosz lives with her full-time and comforts her after surgery to repair wounds inflicted by hyenas before her rescue.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
On Hume’s ranch, a team led by veterinarian Michelle Otto treats an abscess on a male rhino bought from another property owner. Otto speculates that when this animal’s horn was removed, his owner had cut dangerously low, causing an abscess to form.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
These rhinos at a feeding site on Hume’s ranch have recently had their horns trimmed. Unlike elephant ivory, rhino horn grows back when cut properly. He estimates that he has five
… Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
These white rhinos crossed from Kruger into Sabie Game Park in Mozambique, where 29 white rhinos and two black rhinos were counted in 2015. Rhinos that enter Mozambique are holding their own thanks to efforts to crack down on poachers—but they remain at very high risk.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
Sudan was transferred along with three other northern whites from a zoo in the Czech Republic in 2009. The rhinos, which had not produced offspring in captivity, were brought to the wild in a last-ditch effort to breed them back from the brink of extinction.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
A white rhino calf romps with a juvenile in a game park holding pen in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
An eight-pound rhino horn like this can reap several hundred thousand dollars on the black market. In Asia, some mistakenly believe rhino horn has medicinal properties. It is actually made from keratin, the same material as fingernails and hair.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
A white rhino cow (at left) grazes with a bull that has become her companion after a poaching attack in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. Using a helicopter, a gang tracked her and her
… Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
Game scouts found this black rhino bull wandering Zimbabwe’s Savé Valley Conservancy after poachers shot it several times and hacked off both its horns. Veterinarians had to euthanize the animal because its shattered shoulder couldn’t support its weight.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
An anesthetized white rhino cow is left to wake up in a field after a dehorning procedure to deter poachers. Poachers killed a reported 1,054 rhinos in South Africa in 2016.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
Some critics of dehorning say it leaves the animals unprotected against natural predators. Advocates argue that the absence of horns deters poachers and reduces the number of
… Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
A decomposing rhino with its horns cut off lies where it was strangled in a poacher’s wire snare on a private game reserve not far from Kruger National Park in South Africa. Rangers staked out the site, but when the poacher didn’t return, reserve officials removed the horns.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty, Nat Geo Image Collection
Rhino poaching is an ongoing crisis in South Africa, where 80 percent of the rhino population lives. While only 13 rhinos were illegally killed in 2007, over one thousand were killed in 2017.
Just last week, local news reported that a white rhino named Bella was shot and killed so poachers could take her one-inch stump of horn, just one week after she and two other rhinos were dehorned for their protection. Bella and her calf lived in Kragga Kamma game park, only a few hours’ drive west of Sibuya.
In this case, however, nature dominated. It’s not surprising that the lions would see three humans, on foot and in thick bush, as a meal. “Almost any organism around lions might be a potential prey item, and for people to think that they are an exception is folly,” Luke Dollar, program director for National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative, told National Geographic in 2015.
The victims of the lion attack have not yet been identified, but police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender says that the rifle recovered from the park “will be sent to the ballistics laboratory to establish if it has been used in any other poaching or crimes.”
