Lion eats employee at South Africa game reserve

A lion has torn apart and eaten an employee of a game reserve in South Africa after the man took an ill-advised night-time stroll.

The 30-year-old victim, Johannes Matshe, an employee of the reserve, met his gruesome fate while walking through Dinokeng Game Reserve in Gauteng after dark on Sunday night.

At some stage in the night, the big cat pounced on the unsuspecting employee, ripping him from limb in a merciless attack.

Stomach-churning images of the grisly scene, which we won’t publish, showed how the flesh was torn from Matshe’s skull while his boot-clad leg bone lay twisted in the grass.

Reserve spokesman Hartogh Streicher revealed that it was an unfortunate operations manager who stumbled upon the human remains at 10:37 on Monday morning.

Streicher made it clear that wandering the reserve after sunset was strictly forbidden. As he extended condolences to Matshe’s grieving family, he solemnly reminded everyone of the peril facing those who do not abide by the reserve’s safety rules.

‘Lions are nocturnal animals, driven by their natural instinct and hunting patterns, and may perceive a person as a normal prey species,’ he said.