By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) confirmed the successful capture of a lion in the early hours of Saturday, after an almost week-long search.
MTPA said the lion was darted and captured at 02:00 on Saturday morning near Sekelbos Estate.
“The lion was darted and captured near the Sekelbos Estate in Mbombela. More details will be made available officially,” the MTPA’s spokesperson, Simphiwe Shungube, said.
The lion has been giving authorities the run-around for days, with sightings near several estates on the outskirts of Mbombela.
The Nelspruit Concerned Citizens (NCC) community thanked everyone involved in the successful capture.
“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.
“We also want to thank the community and security companies of Nelspruit for providing information that helped the MTPA track the lion’s movements, which led to its capture.
“We also want to thank Naspoti [Security Solutions] and their AI monitoring, which provided the final video footage of when the lion was at Heuwelsig Estate ” the NCC said.