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Cecil The Lion’s Son, Xanda, Killed By Trophy Hunters In Zimbabwe

By JohnThomas Didymus
Published on: 08:06 PST, Jul 20, 2017

Yet another of Cecil the lion’s sons has been killed by big game trophy hunters. Xanda, a 6-year-old lion in his prime, was shot on Friday, July 7, two years after his father, Cecil, was killed in an incident that sparked a global outcry.

The Zimbabwean authorizes made the news of the death of Xanda public on Thursday, July 20, nearly two weeks after the incident. Xanda was reportedly killed in a trophy hunt organized by the professional hunter, Richard Cooke, according to the Guardian.

Cooke is a well-known professional trophy hunter from Victoria Falls. It is likely that Xanda was shot by one of his clients. He caters to the trophy hunting tastes of wealthy clients from Western countries, including the U.S., U.K., and Germany.

American and European clients pay tens of thousands of dollars to professional hunting guides like Cooke for an opportunity to shoot and kill wild game and have part of the animal prepared for display.

The identity of Cooke’s client who shot Xanda was not immediately disclosed, according to the Telegraph.

Six-year-old Xanda was shot and killed after he strayed outside the protected area of the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. He was reportedly shot about 2 kilometers from the boundary of the Hwange National Park in North West Zimbabwe. He met his death while roaming with his pride, including two adult females and several cubs, at a spot not far away from where his father, Cecil, was killed with a bow and arrow in 2015.

According to reports, Xanda, who has fathered several cubs since his father Cecil was killed in 2015, was found dead wearing a GPS tracking collar fitted by a team of zoologists from the University of Oxford, led by Andrew Loveridge. The team has studied lion prides at Hwange for several years.

Xanda’s death was detected early because Cooke returned the collar to the researchers when he found it on the neck of the lion that one of his clients killed.

According to the Telegraph, Loveridge confirmed that his team fitted the GPS tracking collar last October and that they had been monitoring the movements of Xanda and his pride for several months before his untimely death.

“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,” Loveridge told the Telegraph.

“Xanda was one of these gorgeous Kalahari lions, with a big mane, big body, and beautiful condition – a very, very lovely animal.”

The Hwange National Park authorities have since released a statement commenting on the news of Xanda’s death.

“We can’t believe that now, two years since Cecil was killed, that his oldest Cub #Xanda has met the same fate,” the statement said. “When will the Lions of Hwange National Park be left to live out their years as wild born free lions should?”

However, according to Loveridge, Cooke, who shot the lion, is one of “good guys.” He shot the lion legally.

Loveridge explained that Cooke’s action was within “stipulated regulations” because Xanda was already more than 6-years-old at the time he was shot outside the protected area of the Hwange National Park.

“Richard Cooke is one of the ‘good’ guys. He is ethical and he returned the collar and communicated what had happened. His hunt was legal and Xanda was over 6 years old so it is all within the stipulated regulations.”

Loveridge, however, said that researchers wish that the Zimbabwean authorities would establish a five-kilometer exclusion zone around the Hwange Park so that lions that wander outside the boundaries of the Hwange Park would not be shot.

Cecil the lion was also killed after he wandered outside the park to an area close to the boundary. He was killed by Walter Palmer, a 55-year-old dentist from Minnesota, on July 1, 2015.

Palmer reportedly paid $65,000 to kill the 13-year-old lion with a bow and arrow.

Cecil’s death sparked international outrage and brought the big game trophy hunting industry under the spotlight. The popular outcry forced Palmer to abandon his dentistry practice in Minneapolis for several weeks.

However, the outcry was short-lived, and big game hunters soon resumed their hunting activities after the U.S authorities lifted the ban on the importation of trophies.

[Featured Image by Hans Wagemaker/Shutterstock]

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