Tiger shot dead after ‘attacking’ security guard

According to eBlockwatch spokesperson André Snyman, several wild cats were being repossessed by liquidators before the shooting took place, Witbank News reported.

“As far as I know, about 15 people approached the tiger cage and the tiger got upset. It jumped over the electric fence and bit a security guard,” he said.

He said the tiger was shot dead and the security guard was taken to hospital.

An emotional video was uploaded on social media by the park’s Justin Fernandes in a desperate plea for help.

Click here to watch the video.

“They walked into the property. They’ve loaded five of my big tigers already. They shot at one. They refused to let us see the one that was shot,” he said in the video before bursting into tears.

Snyman shared a video of a conversation between him and the park’s head, Rosa Fernandes.

Click here to watch the video.

Fernandes said a group of people saying they were from the liquidators, came to the park with papers, stating that the cats were being sold.“They already loaded five into the van and they said they would proceed to take more… they are game capturers and one of them said they got permission from the liquidators,” she said.

The park was famous for raising Panjo, a tiger who made headlines in 2010 when he escaped from a bakkie while being transported to a vet. He was found two days later in a bush in Mpumalanga.

Asked if Panjo was one of the captured tigers, Fernandes said Panjo was still in his enclosure.

This after a leopard was euthanised after it attacked a tour guide in the Kruger National Park in Alpha Loop on the H4-1 just outside Skukuza Camp in Mpumalanga last Thursday.

The animal cunningly disappeared; it probably went around the guide’s side while the group was still searching for it. Suddenly, the leopard leapt and grabbed his arm, trying to jump into the vehicle.

– Caxton News Service