Tour guide helps badly injured KNP-impala out of suffering by cutting its throat
Bretton Lahner, a tour guide, yesterday had to use his knife to put an end to the suffering of a severely injured impala lying on a road of the Kruger National Park.
CROCODILE BRIDGE – Bretton Lahner, an experienced tour guide, was travelling along yesterday in an open safari vehicle with visitors to the Kruger National Park in the Crocodile Bridge section when they came across the gruesome sight of an impala that was still alive but had been hit by a speeding vehicle. Her back and legs were broken and entrails were hanging from her anus.
It was obvious to Lahner that she had been “very recently severely hit by a vehicle at great speed. I can’t see an animal suffer. If it has been injured through natural events, I will do nothing. If it is suffering because of human carelessness like in this case, I will help it out of its suffering,” he said.
“There were a few cars present and everyone was highly upset with the still living but clearly crippled impala. I got out of my vehicle, cut the animal’s throat and moved it off the road. There were a few cars that passed that may have incorrectly assumed I had hit the animal. I just ended its suffering.”
He immediately reported it to the section ranger, Neels van Wyk and his SATOUR manager.
The incident happened on the H4-2 between Lower Sabie and Crocodile Bridge, about one kilometre north of the southern entrance to Mativulungu.
Lahner, an experienced and well-loved guide since 1995 in various parks, said it is always safety first with him and this was also very much on his mind when he got out of the vehicle.
He did have a “good look around. The upside is that the injured and struggling impala would have drawn any watching predator in a flash. Kruger cats and even the wild dogs often use vehicles for cover when stalking their prey and this poor creature had been there for at least five minutes.”
It is against the KNP’s policy to leave a vehicle, a fact that Lahner is very aware of. He played open cards about this incident with the Kruger authorities. Comment from the KNP management on the incident will be sought for an update on this article on Thursday.
An eye-witness, Karen Brown, who was on the vehicle with Lahner, said she knows “it went against the grain with Lahner, but it was something he had to do. Not easy for a man so passionate about animals and the bush.”
