Elderly Woman Fights Off Lioness To Save Goat, Severely Wounded

An elderly woman put her life at risk and fought with a lioness as it tried to prey on her goat in the Indian state of Bihar on Saturday.

Meghia Devi was grazing her goat near a sugarcane field outside her village in West Champaran district Saturday when the lioness suddenly appeared from somewhere and jumped on the goat.

Seeing the lioness pouncing on her goat, the woman ran toward the animal and attacked it with a sickle she carried in her hand. The lioness then severely wounded Devi, a widow, with its claws and disappeared into the sugarcane field with the goat, India Times reported.

Villagers rushed to the spot and took the woman to a nearby hospital.

News website Bihar Post reported the Forest Department authorities had agreed to bear the cost of the woman's medical treatment. Local residents said two lionesses were loitering in the residential areas in the past two days and that many had had an encounter with the tigresses. However, all of them escaped unhurt.

In a similar incident in April, a 23-year-old woman fought off a tiger which attacked her goat in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

Rupali Meshram heard her goat scream and ran out of her house to save it. She then picked up a stick and hit the tiger. The tiger attacked her. Her mother saved her life by pulling her inside the house at the right moment. Both of them sustained injuries, the goat, however, did not survive.

Meshram said she was scared to go back to her village as wild animals frequently loitered around due to its proximity to a wildlife park.

“I am a bit worried about returning to my village so soon after an attack like this, but I am not scared," she said, BBC reported.