Advertise

Advertise

Fugitive tiger euthanised after mauling man in South Africa

 

A tiger that escaped from a farm and roamed the countryside outside of Johannesburg for four days, attacking a man and killing several animals, was euthanised on Wednesday, a local community leader said.

The eight-year-old female Bengal tiger was put down just before dawn after it killed a dog, the latest in a series of attacks that followed its escape from an enclosure at a private farm on Saturday.

Being attacked by wild animals may be considered an endemic risk in many parts of Africa – but being attacked by a tiger in the suburbs of the continent’s largest city is entirely unprecedented. Tigers are not native to South Africa, but in recent years their breeding has become common in the country.

A 39-year-old man, a resident of Walkerville near Vereeniging south of Johannesburg, discovered that the dark can not only harbour urban hunters of the human type, but, in this instance an exotic tigress which had escaped its owner’s property.

The unnamed man, now under treatment in hospital, described on South African TV news channel eNCA how he encountered the tigress, an eight-year-old named Sheba, in the dark.

“I had been with my cousin and was going home. I bent down to tie my shoe lace and this thing just hit me from behind. I used my feet and legs to fight it, that is why my injuries are all in those parts,” he explained.

“I screamed and my cousin heard me. She came and so did other people and they also screamed.”

The man and his family said they were considering suing the tiger's owner.

The big cat has been on the loose for three days, with local animal control officials tracking its movements using drones and helicopters.

Tigers, indigenous to Asia, are notoriously ‘shy’ and hard to find, but reports of its attacks on several animals and continued surveillance led the trackers to the big cat. 

The National Council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) wildlife unit said that owning a tiger was surprisingly easy, at least in Gauteng province, due to several legal loopholes and poorly implemented by-laws.    BY DAILY NATION  

No comments

Translate