We all know what they say about karma – it’s a b*tch. Or, in the case of the recent demise of three African poachers, karma was a lioness.
A group of poachers last week entered the Sibuya Game Reserve in South Africa. Although they weren’t available for interview (more on that later), they were most likely searching for rhinos, whose horns are in high demand because of their supposed medicinal properties.
Nick Fox, the reserve owner, posted on Facebook that, around 4:30 in the morning last Thursday, he heard commotion coming from the lions who live on the reserve. At the same time, a dog trained to identify poachers began alerting her handlers.
Officials later discovered the remains of three would-be rhino killers. They also found an axe, wire cutters, and a silencer, along with clothing for three people. “We’re not sure how many there were — there’s not much left of them,” Fox told the AFP.
The poachers had been mauled to death by a pride of lions.
“I think we had a stroke of luck here that the lions got to them before they got to the rhinos,” Fox told the AFP. “We lost three rhinos in March 2016.”
It seems that the poachers got their just desserts, and the lions got, well, dessert.
More than 7,000 rhinos have been killed for their horns in South Africa in the last decade alone. Great effort has been made to protect both African and Asian rhinos, as their numbers are dwindling; two species of rhino are critically endangered, and others are close to extinction. Preservationists estimate that fewer than 30,000 wild rhinos remain on the two continents combined.
