Son of Cecil the Lion shot dead by trophy hunter in Zimbabwe

By Jonathan Mitchell | The Standard |

A cub of Cecil the Lion, the animal shot dead by a US dentist in 2015, has also been shot and killed by trophy hunters, it emerged today.

The six-year-old lion, Xanda, who was in his prime, was killed just outside the Hwange National Park in north west Zimbabwe, not far from where Cecil was killed in 2015, according to the Telegraph.

It is believed he was shot dead by professional hunter Richard Cooke from RC Safaris, who when realising the lion was being monitored handed his collar back to researchers.

The Lions of Hwange National Park posted on Facebook: “Today we heard that a few days ago, Xanda, the son of Cecil the Lion has been shot and killed in a trophy hunt.

“Xanda is still a young father at 6.2 years old and has several young cubs. We can’t believe that now, two years since Cecil was killed, that his oldest cub Xanda has met the same fate.”

According the Telegraph, the death of the young lion was discovered thanks to an electronic collar which monitored Xanda’s movements in the area.

Andrew Loveridge from the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, which has a team supplying and fixing collars which monitor the lions in the Hwange National Park told the newspaper: “I fitted it last October.

“It was monitored almost daily and we were aware that Xanda and his pride was spending a lot of time out of the park in the last six months, but there is not much we can do about that.”

The shooting of Cecil the Lion in 2015 sparked outrage across the globe and caused widespread anger among conversationalists.

He was killed with a rifle in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, as part of an organised hunt by Walter Palmer, an American recreational big-game hunter.

Celebrities and politicians led the global backlash to the shooting.