Limpopo lockdown has a real bite when you have to watch out for lions

In the village of Sigonde, Nelson Muleya scans the brown veld, looking for lions.

"When we go to fetch wood from the bush you have to watch everything. You need to look for the tracks, or for the lion himself, because when he sees you, he only sees meat," the 22-year-old said.

Last week, the village was placed in lockdown after Muleya and others discovered lion tracks on the fringes of the settlement, a find that resulted in residents barricading themselves inside their homes.

Sigonde is set deep in the heart of the Limpopo Valley, near Musina and just a stone's throw from the Zimbabwe border. Those who live there coexist with the wildlife that surrounds them in a tenuous balance.

Department of environmental affairs rangers deployed to track the big cat found that it had likely crossed the river borderline and then circled the village before moving back into Zimbabwe.

"They can come here so easily. Even though it is gone now, there is no telling when it could come back. I was born here, and it has always been like this," Muleya said.

For those who call the village home, life on the frontier means adapting to living alongside dangerous game.

But wildlife and conservation experts said that as human settlements expand and animals go in search of food and water, they are set on an unavoidable collision course.

Jo Shaw, of the World Wide Fund for Nature SA, said that in areas flanking national parks, human and wildlife conflict was an inevitable reality.

"Growing human populations and the associated expansion of land use to meet human needs, combined with the shrinking and fragmentation of natural habitats, are bringing humans and wildlife into conflict over resources with increasing frequency," she said.

In the village, the sun-bleached bones of a bull elephant - shot by rangers after it rampaged through fences and gardens in November - are a grim reminder of the deadly trajectory.

The danger posed by game which periodically wander through the village is all too real for 33-year-old Thina Mulaudzi, whose father, Lucas, was trampled to death by elephants in 2004 while trying to defend his crops.

"My father had left the house to go to the fields in the evening and never came home. In the morning I left to go and look for our donkeys that my father had taken with him, and that is when people found him," he said.

"I went to the fields and my father's body was lying there on the ground."

Village elder Ronald Munyai said that big game had always been a part of their lives.

"We accept that this is the way things are and we know that when you walk anywhere you need to be vigilant. Any animal can be around the corner."

Besides being vigilant, he said, residents had adapted by building large fires in their gardens at night to keep animals at bay.

"We have buffalo and elephant that are common in the village. The other morning we found the footprints of the elephants nearby. We know that there is a huge herd that is moving around," Munyai added.

This week a cackle of hyenas was photographed feasting on an impala on the fairway of the Skukuza golf course in the Kruger National Park.

In July last year, a pride of 14 lions escaped from the park and were spotted near the town of Phalaborwa. In the same week, a guard at a nearby mine was trampled to death by elephants.

Shaw said death was an unfortunate outcome of regular human interaction with wild animals.

"It can result in the deaths of the animals involved if they cannot be captured and transported back into the reserve. Conflict can also increase negative perceptions of protected areas in the communities adjacent to the area, which can also have negative impacts for conservation," she said.

Andrew Campbell, CEO of the Game Rangers' Association of Africa, said managing the fence lines of national parks was a mammoth undertaking, with animal escapes becoming a regular occurrence.

"Fences require constant maintenance. Some of the bigger game animals can break through and like with the case of Sigonde, fences along a river border are difficult to maintain.

"Lions are able to swim quite well, so the river would do little to stop it, especially as we approach winter and water levels are low," he added.

Keleabetswe Tlouane, of Limpopo's department of economic development, environment & tourism, said they had a team of specialist rangers who responded to sightings.

"Depending on the situation, the rangers will make a decision to put the animal down or dart and relocate it," she said.