Several animals, including a man, have been attacked by a tiger that escaped from an exotic farm outside Johannesburg, South Africa, according to police and a local leader on Monday.
According to Gresham Mandy, a participant in a neighborhood policing forum, the female Bengal tiger, who is eight years old, escaped its enclosure at the private farm on Saturday when an unknown individual removed the fence.
The large cat then attacked a man, two dogs, and a deer maintained on the same property in the Walkerville region of Gauteng, the nation’s most populous province, which is located 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the economic center of Johannesburg.
The deer and one dog were killed in the attack, but the 39-year-old guy survived; the second dog, however, was severely damaged and had to be put down, according to Mandy.
“The search is still on,” for the tiger, police spokesman Dimakatso Sello, told reporters.
The search for the tiger is being conducted by about 40 members of the police, local community organisations, and environmental protection groups.
“We are using drones, (a) helicopter …but it’s proving a little difficult with the density of the bush,” Mandy told newsmen.
Although South Africa is not home to the striped and threatened large animals, tiger breeding has increased there recently. There is no accurate estimate of the tiger population in South Africa.
According to a survey by the international animal rights organisation Four Paws, 359 tigers, nearly a tenth of the total tiger population in the world were transported from South Africa between 2011 and 2020, with the majority of them going to zoos.
“It’s extremely dangerous and irresponsible to keep these animals in a residential area, and to keep wildlife in captivity,” said Keshvi Nair, spokeswoman of the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA)