- Lion kills businessman at luxury safari lodge in Namibia
There was a wildlife alert when a passenger smuggling dozens of venomous vipers was stopped after flying into the financial capital, Mumbai, India, from Thailand.
Mumbai Customs, in a statement on Sunday said the snakes, which included 44 Indonesian pit vipers, were “concealed in checked-in baggage.”
“An Indian national arriving from Thailand was arrested,” it added.
The passenger also had three Spider-tailed horned vipers, which are venomous, but usually only target small prey, such as birds — as well as five Asian leaf turtles.
Mumbai Customs released photographs of the seized snakes in a post on social media, including blue and yellow reptiles squirming in a bucket.
The snakes are a relatively unusual seizure in Mumbai, with customs officers more regularly posting pictures of hauls of smuggled gold, cash, cannabis or pills of suspected cocaine swallowed by passengers.
However, in February, customs officials at Mumbai airport also stopped a smuggler with five Siamang gibbons, a small ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Those small creatures, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, were “ingeniously concealed” in a plastic crate placed inside the passenger’s trolley bag, customs officers said.
In November, customs officers seized a passenger carrying a wriggling live cargo of 12 turtles, and a month before, four hornbill birds, all on planes arriving from Thailand.
In September, two passengers were arrested with five juvenile caimans, a reptile in the alligator family.
Last July, a man was caught trying to smuggle over 100 live snakes into mainland China by cramming them into his trousers.
In 2019, the BBC reported officials at the Chennai airport seized a horned pit viper snake, five Iguanas, four blue-tongued skinks, three green tree frogs and 22 Egyptian tortoises from a man travelling from Thailand.
In another animal–related incident, a man was killed by a lion at a luxury lodge in the remote northwest of Namibia, authorities said.
The victim — identified by local media as well-known businessman Bernd Kebbel — was camping with other tourists at the tented resort when the early morning tragedy unfolded, police said.
Kebbel, 59, was camping with his wife and friends near Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp in the Sesfontein area when he was attacked by the animal, the Namibian newspaper reported.
He was attacked when he stepped out of his tent to use the toilet, environment ministry spokesperson Ndeshipanda Hamunyela told local news outlet Informante.
Other campers managed to scare off the lion but Kebbel was already dead by then, he said.
Police were “attending the scene and a full report will be submitted in due course,” spokesperson Elifas Kuwinga said.
According to the Daily Mail, Kebbel was a philanthropist who supported wildlife conservation in Namibia and once owned Off-Road-Centre, which sold accessories for safari vehicles.
Desert-adapted lions roam the remote northwest of the country where mountains and sand dunes meet.
In 2023, they were estimated to be around 60 adults and more than a dozen cubs.
But their numbers have dipped in recent months following a drought-induced drop in prey and conflict with humans.
Last August, Namibia authorized the culling of hundreds of animals, including elephants, as part of a plan to feed people in the drought-stricken country.
The mauling marks at least the second deadly lion attack in Africa in less than six weeks. In April, a lion killed a 14-year-old girl outside Kenya’s capital in a ranch to the south of Nairobi National Park.
cbsnews.com
