An American tourist has been mauled to death by a lioness at a Gauteng safari park.
The tragic incident happened yesterday afternoon at Lion Park, billed as Gauteng's Number 1 tourist destination on its website.
The park's assistant operations manager, Scott Simpson, said a man and woman had been driving with the car windows open in a park enclosure.
"According to the witnesses in the enclosures they did have both their windows all the way down. This is strictly against Lion park policy we have clear signage and hand them a slip of paper to explain to them why, however they had their windows all the way down"
Simpson told Algoa FM News that a lioness arrived at the left side of their car and the couple started taking photographs.
"The people were taking a picture about a metre away. This is again according to witnesses when it lunched through the window and bit the lady, the gentleman driving the vehicle tried to fight off the lady. He sustained injuries to his arm. Our staff arrived and chased the lion away. She passed away while paramedics were treating her" he said
Simpson said the Lioness would not be put down but would be moved to an isolated enclosure not visited by tourists.
Picture: General
