Sibuya Game Reserve in Kenton-on-Sea, South Africa is a popular destination that is home to Africa’s famous “Big 5” — lions, elephants, rhinos, buffalos, and leopards — who reside on the reserve’s 30 square miles. This past Monday morning, around 4:30 AM, it is believed a group of three poachers entered the reserve with the intention of killing rhinos, but it appears the lions of the park interfered in time and attacked and ate the poachers!

Nick Fox, the park’s owner, told Newsweek, “The only body part we found was one skull and one bit of pelvis, everything else was completely gone … There is so little left that they don’t know exactly how many people were killed, we suspect three because we found three sets of shoes and three sets of gloves.” Fox noted that rhino poaching groups are usually composed of three people.

“They [found] an ax and high-powered rifle with a silencer, which is a surefire sign of rhino poachers,” Fox added.

Captain Mali Govender, a police spokesperson, shared that detectives are undergoing an investigation to determine if more people were eaten than they presume. She said, “We do not know identities, but firearms have been taken by the police and will be sent to the ballistics laboratory to see if they have been used in poaching before.”

It should be noted that the six lions of the pride will not be killed, with Fox saying, “the status quo will continue.” Sibuya Game Reserve is no stranger to the dangers of poaching and have experienced a number of break-ins in recent years. In 2016, a group of poachers broke into the reserve and shot three rhinos for their horns. Sibuya is not the only target for poachers, as this type of attack on Mother Nature occurs on other nature reserves and in the wild on a regular basis. Paid a pittance by wildlife traffickers and buyers, typically from China where rhino horn is used for unfounded medicinal reasons, poachers have hunted down Africa’s wildlife so far that the Northern White Rhino is virtually extinct now. These facts make places like Sibuya all the more essential for the survival of our planet.

Although many opinions can be drawn from such an event as this one, one thing everyone can agree on is that poaching needs to end now if our world is to have a chance at survival.

Image Source: Pixabay