66 year old kills leopard
Sharon Mathala | Monday November 17, 2014 17:36
When The Monitor team visited him last week at his home, Sefatlho had just been released from Bamalete Lutheran hospital, where he spent three nights.
“Ne ke tlhathela dipodi, it was around 5 pm, then I realised my dogs were barking at something up a tree near the kraal, at first I thought it was a baboon,” Sefatlho related of the near tragedy.
He said as the dogs were barking at the tree, the leopard suddenly jumped off the tree charging his direction.
“Out of panic, I picked stones from the ground and threw at it, but it was still charging my direction,” he said.
He said everything happened so fast, he grabbed the monstrous animal by the tail and the tussling began.
“I had no choice really, I do not know what I was doing… I grabbed it by the tail and we were at it for about another ten minutes, at one point I almost fell as it was beginning to overpower me,” he related.
“In the midst of all that, I remembered I had a knife on me: began to loosen up as I was trying to reach for the knife. It then grabbed my right foot with its teeth, at that point I thought I was a goner,” he said.
By the grace of God, he managed to reach for his knife and struck the animal on its throat and that is it how he managed to defeat it.
“As it grew weaker and weaker, I gained strength. I was scared but that was not going to stop me, I was nearly there, it was nearly over, the leopard eventually let go,” he said.
Sefatlho’s wife, Setshego Sefatlho, who did not accompany her husband to the farm on that day, said she was at a wedding when she received the call. “My other uncle came to tell me what had happened, we rushed to the site and found him lying in his pool of blood,” she said. She said they rushed her husband to the hospital before reporting the matter to the police.
Efforts to get a comment from the Department of Wildlife and Tourism were unsuccessful at the time of going to press.