Aberdare leopard with a fetish for Christmas goats

By Wainaina Ndung’u

A carnivore believed to be a leopard has again left a village in Nyeri County in astonishment after enjoying yet another merry Christmas at their expense.

The carnivore that casts a spell on Kimathi and Ihururu locations of Detu district usually leaves panicky villagers afraid of venturing outside their houses when it invades in late November for a two month-long Christmas feast.

Villagers claimed the errant wild animal usually has an annual Christmas holiday pilgrimage. They blame it for livestock deaths in the last three years. It kills its prey and devours the carcass right in the homestead.

It has in the past celebrated the Nativity with rams, ewes, goats and at least two heifers, according to provincial administration officials in the area.

Traps

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Panicky villagers in the hilly tea growing area neighbouring the Aberdare Forest claimed the animal prowled a ten-kilometre square area in one night. Local security officers said they had issued a warning to residents not to sleep in the same huts with their livestock.

Aberdare National Park Senior Warden Felix Mwangangi, whose telephone number has been circulated locally, said his rangers had set up traps in the area. Unfortunately, he added, catching the animal proved elusive because of its nocturnal characteristics — hiding at daytime and hunting at night.

Area Chief Samuel Nderitu Mithaa said the two traps set up in the area have not turned out any catch, even though they are refreshed every night with a live goat or sheep.

According to Mithaa, the carnivore strangled 36 animals in a period of four months to Christmas in 2010 while last year it killed over 50 goats and sheep in his location before disappearing quietly after the turn of the year.

Giant rabbits

"It mostly goes for sheeps and goats, but last year it also killed a calf, three dogs and ten giant rabbits in one boma," said Mithaa, adding that he had advised locals to fortify their animal sheds to forestall likely attacks.

Livestock farmer Johnson Gichohi Kariuki, 60, said the animal invaded his home on November 14 and killed four of his sheep.

Villagers claimed they had sighted the carnivore at night in the last invasion and this time it was allegedly accompanied by its cub. It is believed to escape from the nearby Aberdare National Park after scaling the solar powered electric fence that surrounds the park.

The Kanjora assistant chief Francis Wanyiri, however, said the animal probably lives in the four-kilometre stretch of Aberdare forest outside the electric fence and returns to terrorise the village at night.

Tea-growing villages

One of the villagers who spoke to Crazy Monday claimed the carnivore has been invading the surrounding tea growing villages seven kilometres from Nyeri town annually around Christmas.

"This is one animal that enjoys Christmas as it usually comes for our sheep and goats around this time of the year," said Christopher Wambugu.