Hot breath of death

16 January 2017 - 09:07 By RIAAN MARAIS
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LUCKY ESCAPE: The leopard shot dead by Dale Venske at Burchell game reserve, near Alicedale, Eastern Cape after it attacked a farmworker
LUCKY ESCAPE: The leopard shot dead by Dale Venske at Burchell game reserve, near Alicedale, Eastern Cape after it attacked a farmworker
Image: FRONTIER SAFARIS

'This is the end for me, this is how I die,' a farmworker thought before he narrowly escaped death by mauling when a massive leopard attacked him in dense bush on an Eastern Cape game reserve.

The drama unfolded during a pest control expedition when the animal pounced on Zwelake Dyan - employed at the Burchell Private Game Reserve, near Alicedale. The leopard was subsequently shot dead by a member of the party.

Dyan, 60, was part of a group hunting small predators on the farm on Thursday when the "unusually large" leopard attacked him, ripping the left side of his face.

As Dyan recovers in Settlers Hospital, in Grahamstown, the Green Scorpions are investigating the incident.

"It happened so quickly," Dyan said from his hospital bed.

"When I spotted the leopard it was already preparing to charge me. It jumped right onto my chest, knocking me down unconscious."

One set of stitches runs from the back of his head, over his left ear, and across his cheek, another across the same cheek, holding together the left part of his top lip, which was nearly ripped off in the attack.

His left eye is swollen shut, his left arm broken and he has deep cuts in his right shoulder where the leopard's claws dug into him.

Dyan, a houndsman who has been working at the farm for 23 years, led a pack of 12 dogs to sniff out jackal and lynx, which eat smaller antelope on the farm.

Nearby, vermin control officer Dale Venske, carrying a rifle, was working with Dyan to hunt the small predators.

Dyan's dogs started circling a clump of bushes and Dyan went closer to investigate.

"It was dark inside the bushes, but when I eventually saw the leopard, about 15m from me, I immediately knew what it was.

"By that time it had already been watching me and the barking dogs made it angry.

"Before I knew what was happening, it was on top of me."

The leopard knocked Dyan down, dazing him.

When he regained his senses, he heard his dogs chasing the leopard away and towards Venske.

Venske fired, hitting the leopard in the head and killing it on the spot.

"I believe my dogs saved my life. If they had not been there to chase the leopard off, Dale would not have been able to get a clear shot," Dyan said.

Farm owner Barry Burchell said: "Anyone else would probably have fled, but Dale managed to get a clear shot when the leopard was about 5m from him with a calibre that is actually too small for killing leopards.

"I believe he saved both their lives."

Burchell said Cape leopards were indigenous to the region, but due to this one's size - it was 112kg - he believes this was of another species that had been introduced to the area.

He said they had found a nyala carcass near where the leopard was killed.

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