Only a skull and a pair of trousers remained after a suspected rhino poacher was killed by an elephant and then eaten by lions in Kruger National Park, South Africa.
A poacher hunting rhinos in a South African game reserve has suffered a grisly fate after he was trampled to death by an elephant then eaten by a pride of lions.
The incident happened after the man entered the park last week Monday with four others to target rhinos, according to a South African Parks statement.
His accomplices told authorities how an enraged elephant surprised them as they were stalking an endangered rhino.
An elephant “suddenly” attacked the alleged poacher, killing him, and “his accomplices claimed to have carried his body to the road so that passersby could find it in the morning. They then vanished from the Park,” CNN report the police as saying.
#sapsMP Komatipoort: A human skull found in the Kruger National Park (KNP) is believed to be that of a man reportedly killed by an elephant while poaching with his accomplices on 01/04; duo arrested, rifles & ammo seized. MEhttps://t.co/XXsXpJqTjA pic.twitter.com/4Oye38Eddh
— SA Police Service 🇿🇦 (@SAPoliceService) April 6, 2019
“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers and this incident is evidence of that,” says Glenn Phillips, who manages the national preserve.
“It is very sad to see the daughters of the deceased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
The black rhino, which is considered critically endangered after its population tumbled from about 65,000 to 1970 to 2,400 in 1995, according to Kruger National Park. Conservation efforts have boosted their numbers, and the world’s remaining 5,000 or so black rhinos live predominantly in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.