Fear as Leopard invades village in Bukomansimbi
A leopard. PHOTO | COURTESY
Residents of Kayanja Village, Kitanda Sub County in Bukomansimbi District are living in fear after a leopard reportedly invaded the area, killing 12 sheep.
According to Mr Joseph Kayita, on October 16, he found three of his sheep dead and thought perhaps ‘an ill-hearted’ resident had hacked them.
"I thought someone killed my sheep with intentions of taking the meat, but to my surprise, the carcass was not taken," Mr Kayita said in an interview on Saturday.
“After two days, I woke up to sad news when I found two other sheep from my farm dead and that is how I started investigating the cause of the death,” he added.
Mr Augustine Kikomeko, the Kayanja Village chairperson said, they are worried that the leopard may also attack residents.
“Most of the school going pupils from Kyankoko Village pass via Kayanja swamp where the leopards are hiding, so we ask the government to come to our rescue,” Mr Kikomeko said.
Bukomansimbi District Speaker, Mr Peter Luberenga, said they had a problem of stray dogs that killed about 10 people a few months ago and leopards are now invading them.
"Our investigations have revealed that they could be two leopards marauding in the area,” he said.
The veterinary officer for Greater Masaka, Dr Joseph Nsereko, said upon doing a postmortem on the carcasses, he realised that their death resulted from loss of too much blood.
“We suspect a leopard to have killed those animals because it does not feed on meat, but rather on blood,” he said.
He advised the district leadership to come up with a plan of hunting down the killer big cats because they are very dangerous and may start attacking residents.
“The Uganda Wild Authority Stand-by Problem Animal Capture team may take long to respond, but the district leadership can hire hunters so that the issue can be quickly solved,” he said.
Mr Bashir Hangi, the communications manager at UWA said the local leaders have not officially notified them but when they do so, a team will be dispatched to capture the animal. “We would like to help them, but let them reach out to us. We will go and find out which wild animal is over there," he said when contacted.
