Translations - Abu Dhabi
The strong stench and the thick swarm of flies were just two appearances, through which Rainett Meyer recognized that she had found something truly appalling.
After receiving a report on lions left in small cages, Meyer, the chief inspector of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, went to the Wag An Petje farm, 20 miles outside Bloemfontein in South Africa's Free State District.
With her background of what her country's controversial black breeding of "dreadful" international trade is about the bones of a predatory animal, she expected the worst to happen.
But nothing could prepare him for the hideous scene he found inside an unidentified farmhouse that was used as a black slaughterhouse. His supervisor and eight workers stripped off the bodies of dozens of lions that had just been slaughtered.
The British newspaper Daily Mail said: "The black people, some of them slaughtered while others are waiting for the skin, covered the blood-stained land."
A pile of viscera and skeletons were found elsewhere on the farm, while others that were not cared for were stacked in black plastic bags and carried away by a trailer.
The pictures taken by the investigators showed horrific scenes of bloodshed, and 54 lions were found shot in two days.
"It was horrible, we could not believe what was happening, you could smell the blood, the blacks were shot in the camp and then all were taken to this room," Meyer said.
"For me, lion is a luxury animal, a royal animal, here it is slaughtered for people who only want to make money, it's absolutely disgusting."