Armed South African wildlife rangers and police scoured farmland around a small town near the Mozambican border on Tuesday for five lions that escaped from the country’s main national park.
The animals broke free from the Kruger park on Monday morning close to Komatipoort, a community of about 5,000 people.
“We believe it is five lions, and they are in the sugar cane fields near the border with Mozambique,” said park spokesman, Reynold Thakuli.
Trackers will attempt to recapture them using tranquiliser guns.
The area around Kruger, one of the country’s main tourist attractions, contains villages and farms that also raise cattle, putting livestock as well as people at risk of attack.
In 2015, a lion named Sylvester crawled under an electric fence at another park and went on a three-week sheep-killing spree before he was found by rangers taking a nap.
The cat was earlier this year released back into wild from a 200-hectare holding enclosure.
South Africa is virtually the only African country that contains its big, dangerous wildlife in fenced reserves.
In other African states, whose governments do not have the resources for fencing or capture operations, lions and other alpha animals frequently stray outside the boundaries of protected areas.
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