A leopard snatched and ate the three-year-old son of a ranger at a popular national park in Uganda.
The animal attacked the toddler – named in local reports as Elisha Nabugyere – at a safari lodge near the shore of Lake Edward on Friday night.
Ugandan authorities recovered the child’s skull the following day.
The leopard is now being hunted down before it kills again.
“Once it has eaten human flesh the temptations are high to eat another human being, it becomes dangerous,” said Uganda Wildlife Authority spokesman Bashir Hangi.
The boy was in the care of a nanny at the unfenced staff quarters for the Uganda Wildlife Authority at the Queen Elizabeth National Park when the leopard struck at around 7.30pm.
“The maid was not aware the child followed her,” Mr Hangi said.
“She heard the kid scream for help. She intervened but it was too late – the leopard had vanished with it in the bush.
“A search was mounted until we got the skull the next day. The hunt is on with the intention of capturing the leopard and removing it from the wild.”
The boy’s father, Francis Nabugyere, a police officer, told The Kampala Post his son’s remains were presented to him in a coffin for burial.
Last week in South Africa a filmmaker was killed by a giraffe at a safari lodge, and the British owner of a wildlife park was mauled by a lion he had raised since it was a cub.
In India a man was mauled to death by a bear after reportedly stopping to take a selfie with the animal.
