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Lion kills safari guide in Hwange

A safari guide has been mauled to death in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, where Cecil the lion lived.

Camp Hwange has named the guide as 40-year-old Zimbabwean Quinn Swales.

Camp Hwange said in a statement that the attack happened on Monday morning.

It said professional guide Quinn Swales was taking guests on a photographic walking safari.

It’s understood Swales was attacked when a male lion unexpectedly charged and he died of his injuries.

This tragic incident comes after the global spotlight was turned on Hwange last month, when Cecil the lion was killed by US dentist Walter Palmer.

Swales’s last post on Facebook is a photo of a lion that is almost certainly Cecil.

Source: EWN

‘What lion?’ Zimbabweans ask as Cecil circus goes global

As social media exploded with outrage this week at the killing of Cecil the lion, the untimely passing of the celebrated predator at the hands of an American dentist went largely unnoticed in the animal’s native Zimbabwe.

“What lion?” acting information minister Prisca Mupfumira asked in response to a request for comment about Cecil, who was at that moment topping global news bulletins and generating reams of abuse for his killer on websites in the United States and Europe.

The government has still given no formal response, and on Thursday the papers that chose to run the latest twist in the Cecil saga tucked it away on inside pages.

One title had to rely on foreign news agency copy because it failed to send a reporter to the court appearance of two locals involved.

In contrast, the previous evening 200 people stood in protest outside the suburban Minneapolis dental practice of 55-year-old Walter Palmer, calling for him to be extradited to Zimbabwe to face charges of taking part in an illegal hunt.

Local police are also investigating death threats against Palmer, whose location is not known. Because many of the threats were online, police are having difficulty determining their origins and credibility.

Palmer, a lifelong big game hunter, has admitted killing Cecil with a bow and arrow on July 1 near Zimbabwe’s Hwange national park, but said he had hired professional local guides with the required hunting permits and believed the hunt was legal.

For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a ‘First World Problem’.

“Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country,” said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. “What is so special about this one?”

As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a potential meal, or a threat to people and property that needs to be controlled or killed.

The world of Palmer, who paid $50,000 to kill 13-year-old Cecil, is a very different one from that inhabited by millions of rural Africans who are more than occasionally victims of wild animal attacks.

According to CrocBITE, a database, from January 2008 to October 2013, there were more than 460 recorded attacks by Nile crocodiles, most of them fatal. That tally is almost certainly a massive underrepresentation.

“Why are the Americans more concerned than us?” said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. “We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange.”

Source: Reuters

American hunter kills wrong lion

An American man is being sought in connection with the killing of Cecil the lion, Zimbabwean officials said Tuesday.

The man suspected in Cecil’s death is Walter James Palmer of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, according to Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

Cecil, who was 13, was a prized lion in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, where visitors reportedly sighted him frequently.

He was a participant in a study that Oxford University in Britain was conducting, and he had been outfitted with a GPS collar.

A police official in Zimbabwe said that two Zimbabweans had been arrested in the case and that police were looking for Palmer.

The Zimbabweans were due in court Wednesday, according to a statement from the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe. One is a professional hunter, the statement said.

Rodrigues said Palmer was an American and gave his passport number and street address, but police were more vague. Charity Charamba, a Zimbabwe police spokeswoman, said police were seeking Palmer, “who might be an American or a Spaniard.”

The allegation is that the lion was killed illegally, Charamba said.

In a statement Tuesday, Palmer, who runs a dental practice, said he hired professional guides who secured proper permits.

“To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted,” he said in the statement.

“I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt. I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.”

He said no authorities in Zimbabwe or the United States had contacted him but he would assist them in any inquiries.

The hunter concluded: “Again, I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion.”

Rodrigues said that Palmer “apparently paid $50,000 for the kill.”

On July 6, Rodrigues said, a hunter took Palmer to Hwange National Park.

“They went hunting at night with a spotlight, and they spotted Cecil,” Rodrigues said. “They tied a dead animal to their vehicle to lure Cecil out of the park, and they scented an area about half a kilometer from the park,” or about 550 yards.

Rodrigues said Palmer shot Cecil with an arrow but failed to kill him. Then the two men tracked Cecil, finding him about 40 hours later and shooting him to death with a gun, Rodrigues said.

They discovered that he had been fitted with a GPS collar and tried to destroy it, Rodrigues said.

Cecil was skinned and beheaded, Rodrigues said. Contrary to earlier reports, he said, the head has not been found.

Source: CNN

American woman bitten to death by lion at Johannesburg Lion Park

The Johannesburg Lion Park is situated on the outskirts of the City of Gold, just a few kilometres from luxury gated residential estates and luxurious shopping centres. Yet so close to this refined environment, an American woman was dragged to her death and another person seriously injured after being pulled through their car window by a lion at the park.

The two tourists were reportedly travelling with their windows open when the lion got inside. The woman was killed and the driver critically injured at Gauteng Lion Park near Johannesberg.

The park’s manager Scott Simpson said: “We don’t know exactly what happened, we do know that there was a car driving to the lion camp and the lion did come through the window and it did bite the lady. Unfortunately the ambulance arrived quite soon but the lady has passed away.”

Man killed by zoo lion in East London

Buffalo City Metro spokesperson, Thandy Matebese told eNCA.com the victim who was killed by the lion after the mauling, had deliberately jumped into the enclosure.

Matebele said, “This person deliberately went in to the enclosure.”

Officials at the East London Zoo have moved to assure visitors of its safety after a man was mauled by a lion on Tuesday.

Asked about general security measures, he told eNCA.com that the zoo had been revamped two years ago with a new gate and proper access control; but stressed that it was not easy for security to be manning each enclosure.

“We try to maintain a friendly and secure environment, for this reason security are on patrol and not at each feature,”

Matebese said they still didn’t know what had led to the man jumping to his death the way he did.

Police had found a lot of blood close to the fence and security wall.

From the security footage, police determined that the man had used the wall for support and climbed over the netted fence into the enclosure.

The incident was spotted by feeding staff around 10am.

“It was not a gruesome scene, a full body was found with all the parts attached. There were scratches to the body but it wasn’t ripped apart. The lions went for the neck as they do with their prey,” said Matebele.

Matebese said it would be easy to identify the man, who still had his phone and wallet on him when he was found.

He’s described the incident as “unfortunate”, saying a visiting school group from Kings College Primary, had to be turned away when the body was discovered.

Metebele said; “They had to be turned away as the removal of the body had to take place.”

Matebese said the zoo had offered counselling but that no one had taken them up on that offer.

Source: eNCA