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Terror from man-eating lions increasing in Tanzania
2006-08-28 08:24:37
By Ludger Kasumuni
Over 200 people are killed every year by dangerous animals, about one third assumed to be by lions.
In Tanzania,lions are a major source of conflicts with the human population.
The number of lions that inflict deaths and injuries to Tanzanians have always been higher in Southern Tanzania than in other parts of the country.
Harunnah Lyimo, an independent researcher says in an exclusive interview with The Guardian that notorious areas for man-eating lions are Tunduru, Songea, Lindi and Rufiji districts, although people have known to be killed as close as 50 kilometers from Dar es Salaam.’
He said up to now,neither exhaustive data have been collected.
The ongoing lion-human conflict could develop into a major danger to the survival of lions in Tanzania, which still has the biggest population of all the countries in the continent.
”Between August 2002 and April 2004 a man-eating lion killed 35 people and injured at least nine in a 350 square kilometres area along the Rufiji River.
Lyimo says this case was exceptional as the number of victims was attributed to a single animal is one of the highest ever reported.
All circumstantial evidence indicates that the main culprit was a single lion.
However,other lions were at times present and possibly involved.
The killing of nine lions by the game scouts did not stop the lions killing humans nor were any further cases reported since ’Osama’ (as the man-eater was called locally) was killed.
He noted that of all victims, dead or injured, 31 per cent were female and 69 per cent were male. The average age was 50 years.
In all,all cases but one happened at night and most occurred between November and January during the period of short rains and April and May (during the main rainy season).
The most frequent method of attack was for the lion forcing its way through the mud wall or the thatched roof of a hut, and then seizing a person and leaving by the same way.
Another preferred method was for the lion to jump up on a ’dungu,’ a lookout platform on stilts, and takes a person whilst on watch for animals destroying crops at night.
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