In an interview yesterday, deputy director for parks and wildlife Humphrey Nzima said officers from his office also established on Tuesday that the hyena died from starvation and beatings by people.

“The hyena died from a combination of beatings it received as it went about biting people and starvation as it appeared not to have eaten anything from the 11th of this month,” said Nzima.

But Dowa District Commissioner Charles Kalemba, said on Monday the animal had features which were not ‘hyenalike’.

But Nzima said people claimed the hyena had legs of equal length because they only saw it in its lying position.

“It’s true a hyena has shorter hind legs and it is easier to tell while it is standing but people saw it while it was lying down. As for the hairs it is natural in every animal that hairs on the tail are longer,” he said.

Nzima’s statement yesterday contradicted preliminary assessments by his department based on footprints which indicated the animal may have been a lion.

• Story originally published by:
The Malawi Nation / Blantyre | Denis Mzembe - Aug 22.02

Posted Aug 21.02

[Original headline: Strange Dowa creature killed]

A mysterious animal, which terrorised areas around Dowa boma has finally been killed but its appearance still baffles people in the district including wildlife officials.

District Commissioner Charles Kalemba said yesterday the animal was killed by villagers after police and Parks and Wildlife hunters failed to trace it for two weeks.

“The villagers did what they know and brought the animal to its death. They never used guns but traditional methods to capture it,” Kalemba said, adding that the village hunting team returned to report the animal had been killed on Monday after four days of pursuit.

He said the animal looked like a hyena but some of its fur made it not “hyenalike”.

“A hyena has shorter hind legs, but this animal has legs which are the same length. It has hyena fur in some parts of its body but it has fur like that of a wild pig in other parts. In fact it has also got a bigger and wider tail with lots of fur compared to that of a hyena,” said Kalemba.

The animal, which appeared in the district on August 8 and terrorised people around an area covering about 20 kilometres radius, wounded 19 people and killed one.

Some of the people attacked by the animal are still in hospital and have lost either arms or fingers while one had his leg amputated.

Deputy director for Parks and Wildlife Humphrey Nzima confirmed the animal was killed by villagers last weekend.

He said an officer from Parks and Wildlife in Lilongwe was dispatched to Dowa yesterday to identify the animal.

“Some people say it is a human creation, others say it is a resurrected human being. But preliminary assessments based on footprints indicated that it might be a lion,” he said.

• Story originally published by:
The Malawi Nation / Blantyre | Denis Mzembe - Aug 21.02

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