HORROR IN THE BUSHVELD

He’d raised the lionesses from cubs – but that didn’t stop them attacking him on a morning walk while his wife looked on

- CYRIL BLACKBURN

IT’S just after 9am and already it’s unbearably hot in the private game reserve near Hoedspruit in Limpopo. Despite the scorching heat, West Mathewson, owner of the Lion Tree Top Lodge, is taking his routine morning walk with Tana and Demi, his two white lionesses.

And just like every day his wife, Gill, follows a short distance behind in the bakkie.

“Come on, ladies,” West (68) tenderly tells his five-year-old lions. “Nearly time to turn back.”

When Tana and Demi become playful, Gill (65) looks on fondly. West raised them from cubs and they’re like his children. She knows he lives for moments like these.

As West engages in a playful wrestling match with the big cats, Gill stops the vehicle. Then suddenly the unthinkable happens. West’s screams shatter the quiet bushveld air. He’s been bitten.

“Help!” he cries.

Gill sees him stumble and fall, blood pouring down his left leg. And then the two cats’ instincts take over. Unarmed and helpless, West becomes prey.

His wife puts her foot down on the pedal and drives towards the lions, both now standing over West’s prone body.

While workers run to her aid, she pulls the bakkie over her husband, sheltering him.

But her efforts are in vain. The lions drag West from under the vehicle. One of them sinks her teeth into him again, tearing open an artery.

Gill can do nothing but scream in horror.

A FEW days have passed since West’s shocking death and friends and family still have no answers for why his “loving and friendly” lions turned on him so suddenly.