In a scene straight out of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, a five-year-old boy got into a frightening tussle with a Bengal tiger at a golf estate in Limpopo on Saturday.  You read all of the above correctly.

If you were a little taken aback to hear that there were tigers (and golf estates) in Limpopo, Zebula Golf Estate is near Bela-Bela and is home to two Bengal tigers named Reno and Paris, who are usually tame enough for visitors to pet and take photos with.

The boy, Finlay Holden, was stroking (and holden?) one of the tigers which resides at the club house when it suddenly took exception to the child and grabbed him in a headlock between its paws.   The animal’s grip was eventually released when another visitor on the scene dug his thumbs into its throat.  Little Finlay and his mother Claire got a big fright, however.

Guess you can take an animal out of the wild, but that doesn’t guarantee that you’ve eradicated the wild from a  Bengal tiger.  Even when it lives on a Limpopo golf estate.

[Source: City Press]