Kampala: The Leopard that devoured a two and half year old baby in Queen Elizabeth National Game Park has been put out of action by ranger from Uganda Wild Life Authority (UWA).
“We had to take it out because the moment a wild animal tastes the flesh and blood of a human being, then it means it will start hunting for human flesh.
“Human beings are easier to catch, weaker to wrestle and tastier prey than the fellow wild animals so leaving that Leopard alive would mean the people living on along that entire peninsular were going to be in danger of being eaten,” Mr Sam Mwandha, UWA Executive Director, said adding that its two cabs are beings hunted down two.
“We shall try to see if we can relocate them or if we fail, we shall put them out of action too,” he said.
Last Friday, Doreen Ayera a ranger at Queen Elizabeth National Game Park, had just left for the evening staff briefing leaving her baby son, Elisha Nabugyere, with his nanny outside the unfenced staff quarters of a safari lodge in the park.
Typical of inquisitive toddlers, and oblivious to the nanny who was attending to other daily chores, the boy surreptitiously slipped from her attention and moved a few meters to the river bank, where leopard met him.
The nanny was alerted by the shrill cry of the toddler who was, by then, firmly in the beats’ claws. It was too late; in a flash, the wild cat had vanished into where it knows best- the wilderness.
Only bones and a skull with a bit of flesh were discovered after a day’s search. They were buried yesterday at the boy’s ancestral home in Sironko.
“I am crestfallen because of the way my son died. It is a dreadful incident I will never forget,” Francis Manana, the boy’s father, who is also a Senior Superintendent of Police, said in a telephone interview.
He added, “I haven’t received any communication regarding the incident from UWA but what I know is that they took part in burial arrangements.”
Asked whether the authority has any plans to compensate the family, Mr Mwandha said human life can never compensated.
“There is nothing you can give to compensate for lost life so we are not talking about compensation. We shall do something but we will not call it compensation,” he said.
What is that something, what is in plan at UWA for the family, I asked.
“Leave that to us,” he responded.
