Lion drops in for take-aways
2007-08-14 23:06
Pretoria - A Pretoria family got the fright of their lives at the weekend when a lion jumped onto the back of their bakkie to get to chicken leftovers in a cooler.
Ursula MacPherson says they'd been on an outing to the Lion Park near Lanseria Airport when the lion "dopped in" for a take-away.
She says they'd had a picnic lunch before taking a drive through the lion camps.
But they forgotten about the left-overs.
"The lion probably caught a whiff of the chicken, which was in a cooler bag on the back of the bakkie.
"Next thing, there he was."
When he couldn't get to the chicken, he settled on the baby's pram instead, says MacPherson.
He jumped off and went to lie in the shade of a tree, where he proceeded to demolish the pram.
"We told staff about the pram and they jumped onto the back of our bakkie, armed with a plastic rake and some kind of panga.
"When we got back, there were more lions. But the guys easily saw them off and retrieved what was left of the pram.
MacPherson says a friend whose bakkie they were driving, has no intention of getting rid of the scratches the lion's claws made.
"It's not every day a lion climbs onto the back of your bakkie, he says."
Meanwhile lion expert Wouter van Hoven has warned people not to leave leftovers on the back of a vehicle when they visit such spots.
Van Hoven, of the Uiversity of Pretoria's Centre for Wildlife Management,
told Amanda Roestoff: "A lion will do everything possible to get hold of it."
He warned that any form of dried blood or animal remains would lure lions, because the big cats were "curious" by nature.
The lions would show zero interest if there were just things like oil and tools on the back of the bakkie, he said.
"This was not abnormal behaviour at all," Van Hoven said of the incident. - Beeld User
(Courtesy of Beeld reader Ursula MacPherson)