Animal Kingdom in the News

73-Year old Kills Leopard

A 73-year-old Kenyan grandfather reached into the mouth of an attacking leopard and tore out its tongue to kill it, authorities said on Wednesday. The leopard sank its teeth into the farmer's wrist and mauled him with its claws. "A voice, which must have come from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand in its wide open mouth. I obeyed," M'Mburugu said. As the leopard was dying, a neighbour heard the screams and arrived to finish it off with a machete.
M'Mburugu was toasted as a hero in his village Kihato after the incident earlier this month. He was also given free hospital treatment by astonished local authorities.
Taken from Reuters

Lion's Object Marriage

A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday. She had been guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said. "They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said.
Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said the girl may have survived because she was crying from the trauma of her attack. "A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn't eat her," Williams said. Ethiopia's lions, famous for their large black manes, are the country's national symbol and adorn statues and the local currency.
Kidnapping young girls has long been part of the marriage custom in Ethiopia. The United Nation estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where most of the country's 71 million people live.
Excerpts taken from Yahoo