Cape Town - The wildlife and the farmers in the Karoo will no longer have to sleep with one eye open now that the notorious escaped Karoo lion is back home at the Karoo National Park.
The lion was spotted in the Northern Cape near the town of Sutherland. On the night of March 13 it was darted more than 100km from the Karoo National Park.
The search for the escapee caught the attention of South Africans when he was first spotted outside of the Karoo National Park boundary around February 15. It is believed he escaped by crawling under the fence after rain had eroded the soil.
Since then a team of 14 rangers and six volunteers led by park manager Nico van der Walt have been following his spoor trail.
The trackers found new spoor during the afternoon of March 13 and followed the trail until the lion finally emerged from the bush.
“A SANParks helicopter was dispatched and the animal was successfully darted in the mountains,” Van Der Walt said.
Luckily the Sutherland SAPS were able to provide a holding cell for the lion until the Addo Elephant National Park was able to provide a crate.
The lion has been placed in a separate enclosure until it can be determined if he can be released back into the park or if he must be transported to another park. It is unclear why the lion might have wanted to escape.
The search for the escaped lion lasted almost a month. It was only five days into the search that the search team discovered the lion’s first kill, on a farm near the national park.
“The discovery of this kill, with most of the carcass consumed, increased our chances of locating the lion. A lion with a full belly is likely to sleep for some time; this will thus work to our advantage and we can gain time on the lion,” Van der Walt said.
It is believed that the lion may have killed up to 16 animals during his travels, including sheep, boerbok and eland.
Van der Walt said the search had been one of the most taxing experiences for the team involved in the recapture operation.
“Their dedication day and night, sleeping out in the veld, sometimes in the rain and wind, is to be commended,” Van der Walt said.
@WeekendArgus