A 3-year-old boy was attacked and killed by a leopard in Kampala, Uganda Friday, according to Uganda Wildlife Authority spokesman Bashir Hangi.
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Officials said Elisha Nabugyere, the young son of a local game ranger, was attacked while following his babysitter to an outdoor kitchen near their home in Queen Elizabeth National Park, a wildlife park popular with tourists.
The babysitter didn’t notice Nabugyere in the unfenced staff quarters of the safari lodge until she heard him scream and turned around. Hangi said she tried to rescue him, but it was too late.
"The leopard grabbed and ran with him," the toddler's father, Francis Manana Nabugyere, told the Kampala Post.
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The boy’s skull was found the following day. Other bones were also discovered.
According to Hangi, officials fear the leopard may attack again. Leopard attacks, he said, are rare in the region.
But "once it has eaten human flesh, the temptations are high to eat another human being," Hangi told the Telegraph. "It becomes dangerous."
Rangers are hunting down the animal and hope to remove it from the wild.
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