Two years to the month after Cecil the Lion was killed in a controversial hunt in Zimbabwe, one of his sons has also been shot and killed in a legal trophy hunt, ringing similarities to the death of his father.
Zimbabwe temporarily suspended legal lion hunting for 10 days. And although there was public pressure to charge Palmer in Zimbabwe he never faced legal action. He maintained that he had purchased the legal permits to kill a lion in Zimbabwe and said he did not know the individual was famous or part of a study (though researchers argued Cecil's tracking collar should have been hard to miss). Charges were also dropped against the local hunter who organized the trip.
Cecil the Lion’s son Xanda killed by trophy hunter
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Memories of Cecil the Lion and his untimely demise in 2015, at the hands of an American dentist on a hunting trip, are resurfacing after a national park in Zimbabwe reported Thursday that the famous lion's son was shot and killed.
Xanda, a 6-year-old lion living in Hwange National Park, was reportedly shot on a trophy hunt organized by a professional hunter, Richard Cooke, who has a Zimbabwe-based safari service(Opens in a new tab) listed online.
Xanda, the 6-year-old son of Cecil, the lion killed by a Minnesota dentist two years ago, has met the same fate as his father. Despite wearing a research collar, the lion was killed by an unnamed hunter on safari.
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Like his father, Xanda was wearing a research collar, but authorities say the killing was legal. The lion was 6 years old, the minimum age, and along with his pride, the lion had been spending time outside of the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.
Kalinina said to stop lions from slipping into extinction, countries such as Zimbabwe should work to keep as many lions alive as possible and shift away from the trophy hunting industry, following the examples of Botswana and Kenya, which ban trophy hunting.
Public outcry after an American dentist named Walter Palmer shot and killed Xanda's 13-year-old father, Cecil, in summer 2015, seemed to bring attention to controversial sport hunting. Palmer, who hired professional guides, paid $54,000 in hunting permits for the trip. Apparently, he and his guides lured Cecil just outside the park (where lions are protected) with a dead carcass, and then Palmer shot the male lion with a crossbow. The lion didn't die immediately, and according to a statement from the African Wildlife Foundation, Palmer tracked Cecil for about 40 hours before lethally shooting the lion with a gun.
Cecil the lion was killed in nearly the same location in 2015. The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said the 13-year-old black-maned lion was lured out of the national park and shot with a compound bow before being finished off with a rifle. His slaying provoked international outrage and intensified calls for bringing an end to trophy hunting in Africa.
But Cecil was hardly the first big cat to have been shot by hunters in the area: Two other lions well known to researchers had been killed before him in 2015, and more than 60 others had met the same fate in the preceding 15 years.
Xanda, the 6-year-old son of Cecil the Lion, has been shot and killed by a client of Zimbabwean professional hunter Richard Cooke, a Victoria Falls resident. Xanda, in his prime years and the father of several young cubs, was killed just outside Hwange National Park, as was his famous father.
Cecil is lured out of the safety of Hwange National Park with elephant carcass bait and shot with an arrow by an American trophy hunter. When he is tracked down around 10 hours later, he is slowly dying. He is then killed.
The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International and Humane Society Legislative Fund send a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sharing research that shows trophy hunting of lions in Zimbabwe is poorly managed and lion hunting quotas are not science-based.
A much-needed spotlight was shone on the world of trophy hunting when Cecil the lion was killed by an American trophy hunter in July of 2015. Just a few weeks after the second anniversary of his own death, Cecil's six-year-old son, Xanda, met a similar fate. These two lions are just a small example of the thousands of animals killed every year in the name of sport.
Trophy hunting is cruel and threatens the persistence of some of the rarest and most iconic species around the world, as well as species right here in the United States. Mountain lions, bears, wolves, bobcats and other wildlife are senselessly killed every year by trophy hunters throughout our country's last remaining wild spaces.
On the night of July 1, 2015, Cecil was lured out of the protected area and wounded with an arrow by Walter Palmer, an American recreational big-game trophy hunter,[2][3][4] then tracked and killed with a compound bow the following morning, between 10 and 12 hours later.[1][5] Cecil was 13 years old when killed.[6] Palmer had purchased a hunting permit and was not charged legally with any crime; authorities in Zimbabwe have said he is still free to visit the country as a tourist, but not as a hunter.[7] Two Zimbabweans (the hunting guide and the owner of the farm where the hunt took place) were briefly arrested but the charges were eventually dismissed by courts.
The killing resulted in international media attention, caused outrage among animal conservationists, criticism by politicians and celebrities and a strong negative response against Palmer.[2][8] Five months after the killing of Cecil, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added lions in India and West and Central Africa to the endangered species list, making it more difficult for United States citizens to legally kill lions on safaris. According to Wayne Pacelle, then President of the Humane Society, Cecil had "changed the atmospherics on the issue of trophy hunting around the world", adding, "I think it gave less wiggle room to regulators."[9]
Due to the high level of media attention and the negative reporting about the killing of Cecil, significantly fewer hunters came to Zimbabwe in the months that followed. This led to the country suffering high financial losses and a lion overpopulation.[10][11]
Cecil was named after the British businessman, politician and mining magnate Cecil Rhodes, as was the namesake country of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.[12][13] Another lion thought to be Cecil's brother was noticed in Hwange National Park in 2008.[14] During 2009, the two lions encountered an established pride, which resulted in a fight in which Cecil's brother was killed, and both Cecil and the pride leader were seriously wounded;[14] the previous leader was subsequently mercy-killed by park rangers because of the wounds sustained during the fight with Cecil.[15] Cecil retreated to another part of the park where he eventually established his own pride with as many as 22 members. During 2013, Cecil was forced out from the area by two young male lions and into the eastern border of the park. There, he created a coalition with another male lion named Jericho to establish two prides that consisted of Cecil, Jericho, half a dozen females and up to a dozen cubs sired by either Cecil or Jericho.[16]
During June 2015, Walter J. Palmer, an American dentist and recreational game hunter,[26] reportedly paid US$50,000 to a Zimbabwean professional hunter-guide, Theo Bronkhorst, to enable him to kill a lion.[6][27] In the late afternoon of 1 July, Bronkhorst and wildlife tracker Cornelius Ncube built a hunting blind in Atoinette Farm, a private property owned by Honest Ndlovu just across a railway track from the park.[28] Between 9 pm and 11 pm,[1] Palmer shot from concealment and critically wounded Cecil with an arrow from his compound bow. The hunters tracked the wounded lion and killed him with a second arrow the next morning (about 10 to 12 hours later) at a location less than 250 metres (270 yd) from the initial shot. Cecil's body was then skinned and his head was removed.[6] When the lion's headless skeleton, already scavenged by vultures, was eventually found by park investigators, his tracking collar was also missing[14] and later found dumped kilometers away. The hunt took place outside the protected Hwange National Park, but within the lion's normal home range.[29] Biologist Andrew Loveridge alleged that Palmer's companions (Bronkhorst and Ncube) dragged the carcass of an African elephant killed earlier in the week to roughly 300 metres (330 yd) from the park to bait Cecil out of the protected area.[30]
Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa at the time, declared on 11 August 2015: "What it sounds like from a distance [is] that the hunter did not know that Cecil was so popular, just saw a lion, and killed a lion, and it's Cecil, and Cecil is very well loved and it caused a problem, because everyone wants to go and see Cecil. I think it's just an incident."[43][44]
On 7 July 2015, law enforcement officers of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority commenced an investigation after receiving information that a lion had been killed illegally on a farm near Hwange National Park. The Authority charged that a lion had been killed illegally on the farm on 1 July 2015.[40]
When one or more new male lions oust or replace a previous male(s) associated with a pride, they often kill any existing young cubs, a form of infanticide.[87][88] Initially, both the University of Oxford study[18] and Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, indicated that they believed Cecil's six cubs could be killed by the new dominant male in the pride.[4] In a later interview, however, Rodrigues said Jericho had assumed control of the pride but had not killed Cecil's cubs, and that he was also keeping the cubs safe from any rivals.[89]
Five months after the killing of Cecil, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added the Panthera leo leo subspecies of lions, in India and western and central Africa, to the endangered species list.[9][94] The listings would make it more difficult (though not impossible) for US citizen hunters to legally kill these protected lions.[9] According to Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States and who petitioned for the new listing, Cecil had "changed the atmospherics on the issue of trophy hunting around the world," adding "I think it gave less wiggle room to regulators."[9] Wayne added that he thought the killing of Cecil was "a defining moment" resulting in the new protections.[9] Jeff Flocken, regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said that while the U.S.F.W.S. decision was not the direct result of the death of Cecil, "it would be impossible to ignore the public outcry" and its effect on worldwide opinion.[94] The New York Times, writing about the new regulations, said "the killing of Cecil .. seemed to galvanize public attention."[9] 2ff7e9595c
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