Who knows where the lion sleeps tonight?

What happened to the lion reportedly roaming freely in the Dihlabeng municipal area? And who owns it? These are the questions everyone is asking, because no one has taken responsibility… and no one has actually seen the animal.

By Suzanne Venter

A 15 cm pawprint and hair found on a fence are the only signs that a “large lion” has been roaming around the Bethlehem area in the Free State.

These traces were found last Tuesday morning on the farm Astral, near the N5 road towards Kestell.

Livestock Thieves Are Nervous 

One positive outcome is that livestock theft has dropped sharply since the spoor was discovered. “You can hear a pin drop, it’s so quiet,” says a Bethlehem farmer.

The farmer, who prefers to remain anonymous, says everyone is on high alert after the discovery of what is believed to be the spoor of a “large lion”.

Farmers in the area are, however, frustrated by the fact that no one has come forward to claim the missing animal.

He explains that lion farmers implant microchips in their animals to prove ownership. In addition, lions that escape from captive facilities are normally caught within a few hours because they hunt livestock close by.

“They don’t walk kilometres to hunt if cattle are right there,” he says. “Lions are opportunistic hunters.”

In this case, no carcasses have been found near the spoor. Some carcasses were discovered about 30 km away, but farmers argue that this is too far to be linked to the same animal.

Another farmer confirms that the spoor and the hair on the fence definitely belong to a lion. “But it now seems as if someone rubbed a genie’s lamp and a lion appeared, because nobody knows whose it is,” he says. He suspects the owner may be afraid of losing their permit.

Tshediso Maitse, marketing and communications manager at the Dihlabeng Local Municipality, issued a warning about a possible lion or lions on the loose in the area on Wednesday, 5 November. 

He says feedback from all lion farm owners in the area was that none of their lions were missing.

One farmer, who remains anonymous, claims that the 15 cm spoor and the hair found on the fence could just as easily belong to a Bengal tiger.

Like several other farmers in the area, he suspects that the roaming animal may have come from Lionsrock Big Cat Sanctuary, a Four Paws rehabilitation centre for lions, Bengal tigers and leopards. The facility is just over a kilometre from where the spoor and hair were found.

When asked whether Lionsrock had any missing lions, Four Paws immediately said no.

Four Paws spokesperson Deidré Daniels also sent a media statement to African Farming saying the organisation is working closely with authorities following the alert.

She confirmed that all their big cats have been accounted for, and that they cooperated with authorities during an on-site inspection.

Also watch: Viral video shows lion escaping from moving vehicle on North West road

One Farmer Says It’s Not the First Time

One farmer alleges that Lionsrock’s camps do not have the same electric fencing required on lion farms in the area.

According to conservation regulations, standard lion camps must have at least five horizontal electric wires, spaced about half a metre apart. “They do have very high fences,” the farmer says, “but I can tell you now, the only thing that keeps a lion in is proper electric fencing.”

The same farmer claims that four to six years ago he caught a lion walking among his own lions. Nobody claimed the animal, but it was allegedly from Lionsrock.

Fiona Miles, director of Four Paws South Africa, denies the allegation and says the facility’s fencing meets all legal safety requirements.

She says all their big cats were checked and confirmed present – verified by internal checks as well as an inspection conducted by authorities on Wednesday, 5 November.

She emphasises that they have never had a case of lions or other big cats escaping from the facility.

“Well, now we suspect someone quietly darted the lion and returned it to where it belongs, because it couldn’t just disappear,” one farmer says.

Also read:

Opinion: Transformation in the wildlife sector cannot happen without a collective will

Let wildlife through – and cut fence repairs