Cecil the lion in Hwange

We have lost our humanity!

Published on Jul 23, 2015

Tourists eager to see Cecil the lion on safari in Zimbabwe
Shot with an arrow then chased for two days until he was skinned and beheaded: Zimbabwe’s most famous lion, Cecil, becomes a hunting trophy Cecil the Lion, 13, was one of the stars of Hwange National Park The lion was shot with an arrow by a hunter, outside the park's border Badly wounded, the lion was left for two days before he was killed The hunter skinned Cecil the Lion and cut off the head for a hunting trophy 

American Tourist Pays $50,000 To Kill, Behead, Skin Treasured African Lion (VIDEO)

AUTHOR: JOHN PRAGER JULY 27, 2015

It’s almost baffling how much people will pay for the “pleasure” of taking an innocent creature’s life. Cecil the lion is dead and the hunter or hunters who killed him, forked over about $55,000 for the “privilege” of murdering him.

Cecil was something of a treasure in Zimbabwe. Part of an Oxford University research project and perhaps the most famous lion in Africa, Cecil made his home at the Hwange national park. Thanks to the greasing of some park employees’ palms, the 13-year-old lion was lured about a half-mile out of the park by some employees so a hunter could take his life — the practice, The Guardian notes, is commonly used to allow hunters to “legally” kill protected lions:

The Oxford University study was looking into the impact of sports hunting on lions living in the safari area surrounding the national park. The research found that 34 of 62 tagged lions died during the study period. 24 were shot by sport hunters. Sport hunters in the safari areas surrounding the park killed 72% of tagged adult males from the study area.

Dr Andrew Loveridge, one of the principal researchers on the project, said that “hunting predators on the boundaries of national parks such as Hwange causes significant disturbance and knock-on effects” such as infanticide when new males enter the prides.

Thanks to a GPS collar, Cecil’s final movements were able to be tracked. Cecil was first shot with a bow and arrow. Then, the lion injured and dying, hunters tracked their victim for 40 hours until they finally finished him off with a rifle. When officials found Cecil’s body, they discovered something horrible: the lion had been beheaded and skinned.

“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 Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force. “The two people who accompanied the hunter have been arrested but we haven’t yet tracked down the hunter, who is Spanish.”

“I followed him and reached him two days later. Skinned and with his head cut off,” Rodrigues said.

While the murderer was widely identified as Spanish, a hunter who guided him identified the man who shot Cecil as “North American.” The unnamed hunter says that he did not know Cecil was famous and that he is “devastated” by the error — because, apparently, only famous lions matter.

“It was a magnificent, mature lion. We did not know it was well-known lion. I had a licence for my client to shoot a lion with a bow and arrow in the area where it was shot,” he said, noting that he reported the “mistake” to the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority the next day.

Cecil was well-known for being friendly with visitors to the park, even approaching them and “posing” for photos.

The ranger accused of accepting the hefty bribe and luring the lion outside park boundaries has been identified; but, authorities are still seeking the person who shot Cecil — and the lion’s head, which they expect will become a prized trophy. They suspect that it has already been removed from the country.

Earlier this year, the right’s favorite pedophile and pants-sh*tting draft dodger Ted Nugent posted this brain-meltingly stupid defense of trophy hunting:

CELEBRATE how lions thrive in areas where they are valued/hunted as precious renewable resources & hunters pay massive Gob$ of money to pay for game departments & gamewardens to ensure their thriving balanced truly proteced/managed condition. Not to be confused with the evil lies of animalrights freaks who have never saved or protected or paid for jackshit! CongratSalute lion hunters everywhere. We who truly care SALUTE you for your honest conservation values & honesty & success. We guarantee thriving game populations by hunting them. Go figure.

He helpfully included this photo of a trip in which he helped further thin the already-dwindling lion population:

No matter where the hunter who killed Cecil is from, the practice of murdering majestic animals for nothing more than sport must stop. Trophy hunters kill approximately 600 lions each year, though as few as 32,000 are left in the wild — and National Geographic’s Jeff Flocken noted in 2013 that “Approximately 60 percent of all lions killed for sport in Africa are shipped to the U.S. as trophies” so good, God-fearing ammosexuals like Nugent can feel like they accomplished something.

Watch Cecil “pose” for some tourists, below:

Published on Jul 11, 2015

A great male lion who at this time was the pride male at Linkwasha. He was very approachable and looking innocent here, could be quite fierce, which he needed to be to look after all his females