Beware the lion: farmer steps up the fight against robbers
ROBBERS planning to attack a South African game farmer and his wife now face a fearsome adversary after the couple enlisted a three-year-old male lion named Lobengula to guard their home.
Tobie Bird, 46, and his wife Christolien, 31, started using Lobengula on their farm in Hopetown in Free State province after they received information last month that a gang of local robbers was planning an attack.
“I was in hospital at the time and couldn’t think of any other way to protect my family,” Mr Bird, who is a former policeman, told The Sunday Telegraph. “How do you fight off attackers from a hospital bed?”
Lobengula, whose name means “men of the long shields” was brought to the farm when it was a year old.
It was rejected and mauled by the other lions on the farm, but the Birds nursed it back to health.
“He is still a wild lion. He wasn’t hand reared. He was raised by his mother in the wild,” added Mr Bird.
The animal was living in a three-hectare enclosure, but when Mr Bird learnt of the threat he decided to open the gate on the farm at nights so that the lion could patrol the perimeter of the house.
“This isn’t a permanent measure. We’d like Lobengula to be sent somewhere where he can be safe, but for now, it is all we could do. He’s a very special animal. He has a massive personality.”
White South African farmers claim attackers want to torture and kill them to drive them off their land.