Cecil the lion, a famous black-maned resident of Zimbabwe’s Hwange
National Park, died at the hands of an American dentist,
conservationists report.
They say Walter Palmer paid $50,000 to hunt and kill Cecil with a bow
and arrow. The incident occurred around July 6, with a professional
hunting outfit reportedly luring Cecil outside the boundaries of the
protected reserve using a dead animal as bait.
“Mr. Palmer shot Cecil with a bow and arrow but this shot didn't kill
him,” Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task
Force, said in a statement. “They tracked him down and found him 40
hours later when they shot him with a gun. Cecil, who was known all over
the world would have earned millions of dollars just from sightseeing.
Walter Palmer apparently paid $50,000 for the kill."
It wasn’t the first kill for Palmer, who has multiple photos posted on
the website Trophy Hunt America showing the Minnesota resident posing
with dead lions, rhinos, water buffalo, warthogs, and other animals.
“As far as I understand, Walter believes that he might have shot that
lion that has been referred to as Cecil,” the spokesperson said. “What
he’ll tell you is that he had the proper legal permits and he had hired
several professional guides, so he’s not denying that he may be the
person who shot this lion. He is a big-game hunter; he hunts the world
over.”
Theo Bronkhorst, the professional hunter who led Palmer to Cecil, has
reportedly been suspended indefinitely from the Zimbabwe Professional
Hunters and Guides Association for the way the hunt was carried out.
“ZPHGA reiterates it will not tolerate any illegal hunting or any
unethical practices by any of its members and their staff,” the
organization said in a statement. “We will await the completion of the
current investigation by Zimbabwe Parks Wildlife Management Authority
before commenting any further.”
Park rangers and regular visitors knew the 13-year-old lion as a tourist
attraction, easily approached by safari guide jeeps for photo
opportunities. Cecil had a propensity for lounging in the middle of
roads, said Bryan Orford, a former park guide and a longtime visitor to
Hwange. Hunting such an easy target only made the killing of Cecil even
more wrong, he said.
“I used to drive down the railway line road following Cecil and had to
wait for him to get off the road,” Orford said last week. “This walking
in front of the vehicle would go on for ages. Other times he would lie
in the road, and you had to drive off the road to go around him.”
The death of Cecil not only means one less endangered African lion in
the world but also could mean the demise of a whole line of cubs sired
by the leader of the Hwange pride.
“The saddest part of all is that now that Cecil is dead, the next lion
in the hierarchy Jericho will most likely kill all Cecil's cubs so that
he can insert his own bloodline into the females,” Rodriques said.
“This is standard procedure for lions.”
