By Steve Zimba:
The Department of Parks and Wildlife plans to borrow a helicopter from African Parks in an attempt to trace a marauding lion that killed a 30-year-old local farmer, identified by police as Clement Munthali in Mzimba.
The Department’s Director, Brighton Kumchedwa, told The Atlas on Wednesday that his office is also increasing its manpower from four to eight rangers, who will be deployed to Mpherembe area, scene of the incident.
Said Kumchedwa: “We are yet to trace the lion, hence all these initiatives.”
Meanwhile, fear and anxiety continue to grip Mzimba’s Mpherembe, Kabwafu, and Kazuni farming areas following the attack by the marauding lion.
A visit to Kabwafu and Mpherembe on Tuesday found sorrowful faces at Mpherembe Rural Hospital, where the body of the slain farmer, had been taken.
Government officials, including those from the Department of Parks and Wildlife, Police and other stakeholders in the wildlife sector were seen in Mpherembe, with rangers patrolling sections close to the protected Vwaza Marsh Game Reserve, from which the animal is suspected to have strayed.
Reports say Munthali was allegedly attacked while on his way to attend to his tobacco nursery.
One of the farmers in the area, Lyson Chisale, said they are afraid to go to their gardens to water their nurseries for fear that the marauding lion might attack them.
”It is not clear whether the lion is still close to the area, despite rangers patrolling the vicinity,” Chisale added.
Police in Kafukule, in the district under the Mpherembe area where the incident occurred, say that after receiving reports of the stray lion, law enforcement officers, together with Wildlife and Parks officers, visited the scene and found footprints which wildlife officers identified as belonging to a lion.
Postmortem results have established that the cause of death was hemorrhagic shock and traumatic brain injury resulting from a wild animal attack.
Mzimba West legislator Ackim Kumwenda confirmed the incident to local media, saying the lion had reportedly been attacking livestock in surrounding communities for about four days before the fatal attack.
He appealed to authorities to intensify the search and increase the number of game rangers to ensure the animal is tracked down, in order to ease fears among the communities.
Vwaza Marsh Game Reserve is home to four of the “Big Five” game animals — elephant, buffalo, lion, and leopard — as well as large numbers of hippopotamus and many other species.
So far, it is not clear how many lions are in Vwaza Marsh, which lies along the border area of Malawi’s Mzimba and Rumphi districts.
