Male lion captured after roaming Mbombela for days

The Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) on Saturday said that a male lion roaming around Mbombela has been darted and captured.

Lion captured in Mbombela

“The male lion was captured at Sekelbos Estate in the City of Mbombela at around 02:03am this morning,” said MTPA’s spokesperson Simphiwe Shungube.

“The MTPA would like to thank Sapphire Blue Drones (Geoffrey and Donald), Chris Smith from Wildlifevets and the public for their support during the searching period. These key stakeholders worked side by side with the MTPA team until the lion was successfully located, tracked down and moved to the holding pen for further management.”

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On Wednesday, the lion was spotted on security footage near The Rest Estate in the City of Mbombela early in the morning.

Watch: Escaped lion spotted roaming outside Mbombela estate

@lowvelder WATCH | Free-roaming lion captured near Mbombela’s Sekelbos Estate The Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency has confirmed the successful capture of a lion that had been roaming outside Mbombela. The lion was safely captured at about 02:00 this morning, November 2. It was tracked from Monday, October 28, following a spoor that had been spotted near Hermansburg. > Video: Circulated on WhatsApp #lionsightings #lionsightings #lionsight #lions #lion #escapedlion #escapedlions #lionsescaped ♬ original sound – Lowveld Media

MTPA immediately sent a thermal imaging drone to try locate the lion.

The Nelspruit Concerned Citizens (NCC) organisation also confirmed that the lion had been caught.

“We want to thank everybody who assisted in the capturing of the lion, especially the team from the MTPA who worked very hard trying to locate and capture the lion these last few weeks, and following up on leads all hours of the night and day,” it said on Facebook.

It added that the MTBA had confirmed there was no second lion roaming Mbombela.

Not known where lion came from

At this stage, it is still not known where the lion escaped from.

The MTPA’s Louw Steyn told News24 that no game farms in the area had confirmed that their lions had escaped.

“We think maybe it came from the Kruger National Park, but that is just speculation at this point,” he said.

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