After not being seen for awhile, three orphaned lion cubs appeared in Eastern Cape, South Africa, while over in Northern Cape, an elephant was spotted for the first time in 18 years.
In Eastern Cape, the three orphaned lion cubs from the Addo Elephant Park were feared dead after disappearing from park officials’ sight on December 20th, 2014.
Park officials had been searching for the cubs up until last week, when the search was sadly called off with most people losing hope.
However, the lions didn’t give up, and on January 10th around 5:00 p.m., the cubs were sighted by park officials.
After being spotted, the cubs were lured into sight with a wild boar carcass (which they subsequently devoured).
John Adendorff, the acting manager of Addo Elephant Park said it is a miracle that the cubs were still alive. He speculated the cubs must have scavenged for food to survive.
The cubs are now in good health, and vets will monitor them in a boma for a minimum period of 6 months before releasing them into the wild.
Meanwhile in Northern Cape, it had been over over 18 years (February of 1997) since an elephant was spotted in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP).
But last weekend, one of the park’s officials spotted one about 50km north of the Mata-Mata rest camp, near the border of Namibia.
The KTP confirmed on Monday that the elephant knocked down a border fence into Namibia to enter South Africa.
Nobody has seen the elephant since, but the fact that it was sighted is extremely special.
SANParks believes the big fellow originally came from Botswana, and trekkers are currently tracing back its footsteps to figure out where it came from.
Nadia Lemmetuis, spokesperson for the arid areas of SANParks said officials would reminisce about the sighting for the next few years to come, according to Netwerk24.
Read more at News 24.
