The high animal diversity of South Africa’s Sibuya Game Reserve has attracted many poachers in recent years. A group of poachers who recently entered the reserve to hunt rhinos was devoured by a pack of hungry lions.
South Africa is home to 80% of the world’s rhinos. There are currently approximately 29,000 of them, and 1,028 were illegally hunted in 2017.
Poachers are attracted to horns because they are highly sought after in Southeast Asia, where they are said to have powerful medicinal properties and can sell for up to $100,000 per kilogram.
Since each horn weighs approximately 1 to 3 kilograms, a poacher can potentially earn up to $300,000. On the South African black market, white rhino horn sells for up to $1,500 per kilogram. In China, rhino horn and elephant ivory are highly sought after for carving.
According to park owner Nick Fox, the poachers were eaten alive by the lion pride between the evening of July 1 and the morning of July 2, and so few of their bodies remained that investigators could not accurately determine the number killed.
Fox said:
“The only part of the body we found was a skull and a piece of pelvis; everything else was completely gone.”
But based on the three pairs of gloves and shoes, they suspected they were three men. Furthermore, typical rhino poaching groups consist of three people.
