Hiker uses martial arts to fight off grizzly bear
May 30, 2005
Luckily, the bear didn’t have his black belt.
An Alberta man on a Bible retreat successfully used his Brazilian martial arts training on the weekend to fend off a charging grizzly.
Lyle Simpson was hiking through the bush with friends west of Calgary on Saturday when the bruin started chasing him, he said.
“It just burst out of the bush, charging right away. There wasn’t much time to think,” said Simpson, 32, who added there was a cub nearby.
The hikers quickly ran in different directions, but as Simpson was trying to escape, he tripped and landed on his back.
“I put my arm up as the bear was coming on down towards me. The bear tried to bite my arm.”
That’s when Simpson’s training instincts took over and he kicked the bear in the face.
“I think I stunned it just enough. I really think it saved me from a mauling.”
The friends quickly re-grouped and made the 15-minute trek back to Whispering Pines Bible camp.
Simpson needed six stitches to close the wound from the bear’s bite and has a painful gash on his hip.
“My shorts look like they’ve been cut with scissors.,” he said.
Man kills leopard with bare hands
June 23, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
A 73-year-old man used his bare hands to tear out the tongue of a leopard that attacked him in Kenya and killed it, a newspaper said overnight of an incident confirmed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The 73-year-old Daniel M'Mburugu was working in his potato garden near Mount Kenya in the centre of the country when the animal, apparently aggressive, hurtled from nearby grass and charged towards him.
"It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping. I froze for some seconds, then it dawned on me that death was staring at me on the face," he told the Standard Newspaper.
M'Mburugu, a peasant farmer, dropped the machete he was carrying and forced his hand into the leopard's mouth, pulling out its tongue in an act of self-defence, according to the report in the daily.
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"A voice, which must have been from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand into its wide open mouth, I obeyed," he said, explaining that the leopard sank its teeth into his wrist, but would not let go.
As the struggle continued, M'Mburugu realised that the animal's "breathing was belaboured", prompting him to keep pulling the tongue.
Villagers only responded when the animal lay dying and he gained instant status as a village hero, the paper said.
"Wardens said the leopard attacked the man because it was injured elsewhere ... wild animals are usually very aggresive and attack unprovoked when injured," KWS spokesman Edward Indakwa said.
"Nevertheless, he was lucky," he added of the incident that occurred early this month.
Incidents of human-wildlife conflict in the east African nation are common, mostly near game parks and national reserves.
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