Tourist 'to expose' game park after attack
Kashiefa Ajam
March 31 2007 at 12:23PM
Johannesburg might be an urban jungle, but it still has nothing on the real one - and Nazli Peer has the scars to prove it.
Peer was attacked by a one-year-old male lion during a guided bush walk at the Kwantu Private Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape recently.
Kwantu refuses to take responsibility for the incident, saying Peer had ignored instructions by the trainer during the walk and now Peer, a freelance journalist safely home in Johannesburg, wants to "expose" the reserve to protect other tourists from harm.
"My husband and I were enjoying a few days off at an idyllic Eastern Cape private game reserve. Our days were a mix of guided walks into the predator-free, rolling plains surrounded by teeming wildlife.
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"I joined my husband for a guided walk into the bush with the eleven-month-old resident lion cubs raised in captivity at the on-site predator centre. We signed our indemnities looking forward to a unique experience."
Peer and her husband Yusuf joined the animal trainer, a guide and four volunteers from Europe and the US on the walk the next morning.
She said the guides were treating the two male lions to bits of meat on the way.
Peer said she was immediately suspicious of the bigger lion: "It was impressively agile, scaling a tree and jumping for the meat.
"I thought that it was like a circus. I was expecting something more natural."
When Peer tied her jacket to her waist she was rammed from behind, as the lion pawed at it.
"I half-fell to my knees, dropping the jacket instinctively.
"I had just about regained my footing when it approached again from the front, jumping toward my shoulder, clawing me down."
She said a moment later the lion attacked again and the lion trainer had beaten the animal off her.
Peer claimed neither the guide nor the trainer was prepared for such an incident. They had no radios or weapons except the sticks they handed out to everyone who went on the walk.
"As we walked back to the camp the lion began stalking me again. I was bleeding. He circled the group that surrounded me, hiding in the grass looking for an opening."
She begged the trainer and volunteers to protect her.
When the group returned to camp, there was no on-site medical help, nor anyone trained in first aid.
The owner of Kwantu, she said, also seemed uninterested in her ordeal.
"I'm exposing the issue to save any other local or international tourist from this kind of horror," said Peer.
In response to a letter sent to Kwantu by Peer's lawyer, Cape Town attorney Max Ebrahim, this week, the game reserve said Peer had failed to heed clear instructions given to her during the walk. This, they said, was in contravention of the terms and conditions which she agreed to.
