By Mike Loewe
A sheep herder ran for dear life to avoid an escaped wild lion that had been killing sheep near Grahamstown this week.
On Tuesday, the two-year old lioness broke through the electrified fence around the Pumba Private Game Reserve.
Stockman Mlandeli Bill was checking the merino sheep on Faber's Kraal farm on Tuesday, when his cellphone rang.
It was his brother and fellow worker Kumeyi Bill calling from a nearby hill saying a lioness was less than 100m away and heading towards him.
Farmer Adrian Mullins said: "They were shouting 'There's a lion. There's a lion'. He (Mlandeli) really legged it."
Pumba owner Dale Howarth said his staff and the reserve's vet were on the scene within 15 minutes after an alarm was triggered at about 11am on Tuesday.
It is estimated the lioness had been in a camp on the farm for two hours, within which time she had killed four of the merinos, completely devouring one of them, and mauled a further three so badly they had to be put down.
Mullins said the lioness had run back to the fence where a mate was waiting on the other side, and disappeared.
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