PERILS IN JUNGLES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 28 November 1927, Page 8

PERILS IN JUNGLES

HUNGRY WILD BEASTS PROWLING MAN-EATERS. MENACE TO UGANDA NATIVES. Prowling man-eating lions which enter native kraals and carry off men, women and children are causing serious concern in Uganda. According to tho report of the game department 33 natives were killed in three months. The warden states that in several instances he operated successfully against the lions by using poison, the difficulty of shooting being enhanced by the roughness of tho country and the density of the bush. The report contains remarkable instances of the sagacity of the man eaters. One was discovered invariably to accompany a herd of elephants. This not only made the tracing of the beast impossible but enabled it to capture the natives who went out to drive the elephants from their plantations. ‘ The native, the report states, are doing remark..,,ly good work in removing what has become a serious pest. Cases as on record of a chief and a party of natives in tho village of Kyagwe tracking half a dozen lions to the rocky hills where, with the aid of nets and beaters, they wore speared and killed. Natives, however, are adverse to tho uso of the traps which are issued by tho department. The reason is that these traps need careful attention and must be sprung by d if. Otherwise vultures, marabout storks and sceietary birds'come down to the bait and fall victims. The report adds that crocodies are included among other man-eaters and that the hippopotamus is becoming more aggressive towards human beings. FULL OF DANGER. Tho elephant hunters’ work is full of danger. In Bunyora, for instance, the shooting has to be carried out from trees and the hunters are often knocked from their perches into the headlong flight of a herd of elephants after a shot has been fired. The report refers to the feat of a ranger who bagged three elephants with one round of .256 ammunition. It occurred in tall grass, where, after a stern chase, a heard of elephanls was seen to ascend the opposite nil! slope. The ranger, seeing that the elephants were likely to pass a tiny opening in the grass about 250 yards away, fixed his rifle in a convenient fork of a tree and waited. An elephant emerged from the cover into the open space and with a bullet through tho heart dropped dead. The great carcass slid down the hillside, erasing open a wide lano through tho grass.

The second elephant appeared and eeived a bullet near the heart, which did not kill it, but caused it to fall down. The steepness of the slope prevented it regaining its feet and in its turn the animal began to slide down the course taken by the first. A third elephant now stepped into the lane just below number two, which had now gained considerable momentum and which swept the third elephant off its feet. Together the two disappeared into the chasm of the valley, not before, howeve’, a fourth elephant had attempted cross the lane and was caught in the avalanche of bodies. The four were found huddled at the bottom of the valley, dead, their bones smashed to pieces.