Lions Ate Hunter Alive After He Murdered 3 Baboon Families: Fact Check

Story:

A Pride of Lions Ate Hunter Alive After He Murdered 3 Baboon Families

Other Versions

Karma: Trophy Hunter Eaten Alive By Lions After He Murdered 3 Baboon Families

Fact Check:

A ‘Karma Story’ viral online claims a Lions Ate Hunter Alive after he Murdered 3 Baboon Families. The message and couple of disturbing pictures accompanying it are circulating on social media, message boards. Nonetheless, the ‘karma story’ as such is not true and is explained below.

Origin of ‘Karma Story’ Claiming Lions Ate Hunter Alive

In mid March 2019, Nature Is Metal website natureismetal.com published an article with title “Trophy Hunter Eaten Alive By Lions After He Murdered 3 Baboon Families“. Accordingly, a poacher (Trophy Hunter) in Ingwelala Private Nature Reserve of South Africa killed 3 Baboon families. Allegedly, he then spread around the Baboon bodies to use them as prey and hunt lions. Subsequently, a Pride of Lions attacked the poacher and ate most of his body, barring head. The article also mentioned the Private Nature Reserve in South Africa was shaken with screams of the poacher.

Consequently, Twitter page ‘Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting‘ shared the article of Nature Is Metal, garnering thousands of likes and retweets.

The Actual Incident

A Pride of Lions in South Africa did in fact kill a suspected Poacher inside Ingwelala Private Nature Reserve, near the famed Kruger National Park. The lions ate off most of the male body, making it difficult to identify the person. Officials located the dead body of man along with a hunting rifle and ammunition. However, the incident took place earlier in February 2018, not March 2019 like Nature Is Metal website suggested. Moreover, the man killed by pride of lions did not kill any Baboon families before the incident.

On the other hand, the pictures accompanying the ‘karma story’ – lions ate hunter alive after killing baboon families – are old ones and unrelated. The picture of lion attacking a man is a famous one from 1981 Hollywood movie Roar. In a trailer of the movie shown below, you can see the scene at timeframe 0:40 seconds. The other picture showing a hunted Baboon appeared earlier in May 2017 on website blaauwkrantz.com showing a hunter in a Safari. Again, it is not related to the claim in question.

So, the karma story claiming to show Lions ate Hunter alive after he murdered 3 Baboon families is a hoax. The article on Nature Is Metal website appears to address the issue of Poaching, which is illegal hunting and killing of wild animals. For your information, Poaching of lions took place earlier in other places as hunters took away the animals’ heads, tails, paws and skins. Officials say lion poaching is slowly but continuously rising since 2016.

Hoax or Fact:

Partially Fact.