Buffalo mystery half-solved
CHARTWELL NORTH – INFORMATION has finally come to light regarding the death of the mysterious buffalo found on Cedar Road on 6 May.
A man, who requested to remain anonymous but is known to Fourways Review, has revealed that he was the motorist who accidentally knocked the animal over, and at the time thought he had struck a cow and not an African buffalo.
In his statement made at Douglasdale Police Station, the man said he and three others were travelling in a minibus with a large trailer on Cedar Road going towards Dainfern shortly after 5am that morning.
They were making a trip to the Eastern Cape to deliver equipment collected for a disadvantaged school in the province.
“Suddenly, an animal – which later turned out to be a buffalo, but which at the time we assumed to be a cow – came running out of the dark straight at the car,” he said. He added that he was travelling 70km/h but had quickly slowed down to 40km/h when he saw the animal.
Watch CCTV footage of the buffalo running around in Chartwell moments before her death:
“I swerved sharply to the left till I was on the edge of the concrete drain on the road verge but was unable to avoid colliding with the animal [with] the front right-hand side of the vehicle. The animal glanced off the entire side of the vehicle and struck the large trailer very hard.”
They stopped briefly, but couldn’t see the animal due to it being so dark and felt it would be safer to drive to a well-lit area where they could assess the damage to both the vehicle and the trailer.
“At this time a Mercedes sped past us at great speed and so we assumed that the road was clear and the animal had run away.”
After stopping at a garage in Broadacres, they found that the minibus had incurred severe damage to the bodywork, but seeing as the engine was still running fine, they decided to carry on with their trip, unaware of the media frenzy to follow a few hours later.
“We had commitments and people depending on us arriving later that afternoon, we decided to proceed on our way for this long-planned trip,” he said.
Only upon his return to Fourways the following Saturday, was he made aware of the media reports of the dead buffalo and made his statement to police thereafter.
Where do you think the Buffalo came from?
Let us know by commenting in the comments section below.
