Encounters with Wild Animals

Many of us are lucky not to have encountered a wild animal. It is not a pleasing sight encountering a wild animal that wants to have you as its meal. In such an occasion, you would do all you can not to fall under its jaws. You would fight to live another day. It would be a matter of death and life. The struggle to live.

The following are true incidences of people who were close to meeting their death. They are stories of courage and the determination to escape from the jaws of the wild animals. In one scenario, it was a matter of revenge.

1) Moses Lekalau, Kenya

Wrestling with the king of the jungle and eventually killing it is never an easy task. Generally, a male lion weighs 190 kg. You can imagine wrestling with the huge animal to save yourself from the impending death. Many people who are attacked by lions never survive to see another day. Their lives are cut short.

This is what happened to a 35 year old Kenyan man, Moses Lekalau, a pastoralist.

It was in the evening when Moses was taking his cattle to his homestead. While on his way to his home with his cattle, he was attacked by a lion. The incidence took place along a forest path, Maral, which is located 160 miles from the capital city of Kenya.

With a spear on one hand and a club on the other hand, he fought the animal until he killed it. He had lost a lot of energy in his struggle to stay alive.

Before he had a chance to recover, he was ambushed by a pack of hyenas. He couldn't fight against the hyenas with the little energy that was left of him. Additionally, they were too many to defeat all of them. The hyenas attacked him a half hour after he had killed the lion.

He didn't have the energy even to scare them away.

Luckily, a passing motorist was able to save him from the hungry mouths of the hyenas. He was rushed to the local hospital but due to the severe injury he had sustained, he was airlifted to the national hospital situated in Nairobi, Kenyatta National Hospital, for extensive surgery which took seven hours.

Unluckily, Moses died shortly after surgery due to excessive bleeding.

2) Mubarak Batambuze, Uganda

What would you do when a wild animal kills your wife? You would accept the fate of your wife since there would be nothing you could do to bring her back to life. If you gave in to your need to avenge the death of your wife, you would buy a gun and track the animal and shoot it to its demise.

What if the animal that killed your wife was a crocodile? Would you locate it and kill it with crude weapons? This is what happened to Mubarak, whose wife was killed by a crocodile.

The 50 year old man waited patiently for the crocodile that killed his eight months pregnant wife. The loss, the pain, and the grief was too much to bear. Not only did the crocodile kill his wife but also his unborn baby.

Four months later, he heard the crocodile that was the cause of deaths among women and children in the village had returned in the nearby lake where the women and children go to fetch water.

He sought the workmanship of a local blacksmith to design an effective spear that would cause maximum damage and eventual death of the animal. The blacksmith designed a spear with one side consisting of a barbed wire. By thrusting the spear into the crocodile’s belly and pulling it off, it would rip off its flesh.

Along with a few friends, they headed to the lake where the crocodile had made its camp. Close to the edge of the water, his friends saw the 25 ft crocodile weighing 1,300lb. They retreated some distance away for fear of being attacked by the crocodile that was threatening. They begged Batambuze to leave the monster alone by not disturbing it.

For Batambuze he had made his decision. If he would die avenging his wife’s death, so let it be. He instructed his friends to throw stones at it to distract it. This would enable him to plunge the spear into the side belly of the beast.

When he thrust the spear into its belly, the crocodile reacted by opening its mouth in pain and making a quick move to bite him. Batambuze dodged its enormous jaws.

It took Batambuze 90 minutes to kill the crocodile. He had strategized how he would kill the animal. It involved thrusting the spear which was attached by a rope, pull it off, dodge its threatening jaws, strike again, retreat until the beast dies from the wounds.

The man got his revenge and saved women and children from falling prey to the crocodile when they go to fetch water at the lake.

It was a heroic action.

3) Gift Moyo, Zimbabwe

It was on Wednesday morning when Gift Moyo left his home in Search of his donkeys at Sibantubange Farm. It was a walking distance of 10 kilometers.

As he was walking, he heard his dogs barking and snarling at something. They were about 50 meters ahead of him. When he reached where they were, he saw nothing and wondered what got his dogs’ attention. Sensing no danger or why the dogs were backing, he continued on.

He heard a snap of a tree branch followed by a growl which sounded strange. He searched where the sound was coming from.

Suddenly, a leopard jumped down. This startled him. Before he had the chance to recover, the leopard had jumped onto him. It tried to get a good grip of him. It succeeded in gripping his left arm. This forced him to fall on his back. It targeted its neck but the boy held onto the leopard’s ear and left paw to keep it at bay.

Luckily, this young man was saved by his seven dogs. They attacked the leopard forcing it to flee.

Gift Moyo, aged 24, remained on the ground for several minutes because of the excruciating pain and bleeding as a result of the attack. Occasionally, he would rest for some minutes before continuing the trek back to his home.

He was taken to hospital when he arrived at his family's home.

4) Paul John Schalow, USA

For this 10-year old boy, it involved staying where he was without making any movement however small it was. If he made a single move, the lion would have pounced on him. Also, this applied to his cousin, Brittany. If she had opened up her mouth to scream, the lion would have attacked her.

Paul Joh, aged 10, was with his cousin, Brittany aged 9 on a family outing in Tonto National Forest, Arizona, along with ten adults.

At around 2 p.m., they decided to have their lunch at a river. Paul together with his cousin were on a sandy beach when a rabid female mountain lion approached them from behind. Paul was standing.

The expression on his cousin’s face made him to look behind him to see what had invited the fearful expression on her face. He saw it. Before both of them could respond they heard warnings and advice, "Hold still. Don’t move."

The female lion was behind him. He stood like a rock, not moving not shaking. It scratched on his back with its claws. He didn’t flinch. He kept his calm. When the lion opened its jaws ready to take a bite on his head, he didn’t react by screaming or running to where the adults were. Instead, he kept his cool.

Finally, it went. Luckily, he wasn't infected by the lion.