Visitors to Kruger lucky enough to see rare sight
They stopped to see what the other motorists were looking at and were ecstatic to see that it was a python which uncoiled itself from the impala it had just killed
SKUKUZA – Visitors to the Kruger National Park (KNP) can consider themselves lucky if they see the Big Five during a visit to the park, especially since the bush is very dense this time of year.
However, Mr Iwan Hattingh, was privileged enough to come across a huge python that had just killed an impala during his recent visit. Hattingh and his wife Bronwyn and his in-laws, Mr Mike and Linda Griffith, were travelling on the H4-1 between Lower Sabie and Skukuza on May 24 when they came across two vehicles about seven kilometres from Skukuza.
They stopped to see what the other motorists were looking at and were ecstatic to see that it was a python which uncoiled itself from the impala it had just killed.
“The python continued to lay next to the impala, resting for the next 25 minutes. Unfortunately we had to leave in order to make it to the gate in time,” Hattingh said.
They went back the next morning. Both the python and the impala were gone, with only the spoor of the snake left.
“My guess is once the python had consumed the impala, it made its way into one of the many storm-drain pipes that run under the tar road to rest.
There was no other spoor of any other creature around the kill site, so I can only assume that the python did in fact consume the impala and left the scene.”
