Police Hunt ‘Spanish’ Hunter Who Killed ‘Cecil -Zimbabwe’s Most Famous Lion’ For £35,000

An international hunt is underway to find the head of one of Zimbabwe’s most famous lions, Cecil, who had been the star attraction at the Hwange national park the since late 2000s, and is thought to have been killed by a ‘North American’. The police are also looking to arrest the hunter, who is believed to have paid £35,000 for the chance to kill a lion.

Cecil was shot with a bow and arrow then tracked for two days before being killed with a rifle, The Guardian reports. Bait had been used to draw the lion out of the national park, where he was protected, so that he could be killed “legally”. Hunters then took his hide and head as trophies.

“Cecil’s death is a tragedy, not only because he was a symbol of Zimbabwe but because now we have to give up for dead his six cubs, as a new male won’t allow them to live so as to encourage Cecil’s three females to mate,” said the head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, Johnny Rodrigues. “The two people who accompanied the hunter have been arrested but we haven’t yet tracked down the hunter, who is Spanish.”

Prior to his death, the 13-year-old lion had been fitted with a GPS collar and monitored for several years by a team from Oxford University. The team’s study has been assessing the impact of hunting on lions living in the safari area surrounding Hwange national park since 1999.

As a tourist draw, Cecil contributed significantly more to Zimbabwe’s economy than he did as a victim of hunting, Rodrigues told Vice news. “In tourism alone he can bring in $500,000 and $600,000” each year.

Initial reports had suggested that the hunter was Spanish and that police were trying to track down Cecil’s remains among Spain’s taxidermists. The Spanish conservation organisation Chelui4lions told the Guardian that it has appealed to the administration that controls the import of endangered animals to prevent anyone from importing Cecil’s head as a trophy.

However, a Zimbabwean hunter told the Daily Telegraph that the man who shot Cecil was North American. source-theweek.

photo-Cecil the slaughtered lion- Bryan Orford / YouTube