Free State farmer uses young lion as security guard

A GAME farmer and his wife have enlisted a three-year-old male lion to guard their home after they were warned that they were about to be attacked by a gang of robbers.

Tobie Bird, 46, and his wife Christolien, 31, started using Lobengula as a security guard on their farm in the Hopetown district in the Free State after news of the imminent attack last month.

“I was in hospital and couldn’t think of any other way to protect my family,” Bird said.

Lobengula was brought to the farm when he was a year old, but he was mauled by other lions on the farm and a vet advised Bird to euthanise the lion.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I put him in the garage and the vet put him on a drip.”

It took three months before Lobengula could walk again.

“He is a wild lion. He wasn’t hand-reared. He adopted us.”

Lobengula was moved to an enclosure, but when Bird realised his family was under threat he decided to open the gate on the farm at nights so that the lion could patrol the perimeter of the house.

Bird said they would not walk outside while Lobengula was on duty and always made sure there was a fence between them.