Jericho The Lion Is Alive After Reported Shooting

The Facebook page of a group called the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said Saturday that Jericho was killed.

Palmer is believed to have shot the lion with a bow on July 1 outside Hwange National Park after it was lured onto private land with a carcass of an animal, Zimbabwean conservationists have said. Jericho, the brother of famed lion Cecil, who was killed in July by a Minnesota dentist, is “alive and well”, according to the researcher who monitors the lion’s pride.

While hundreds of lions are killed every year, the killing made worldwide headlines because Cecil was part of a long-running study by researchers at Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.

Earlier yesterday, Zimbabwe’s parks authority announced restrictions on hunting around Hwange park, including an immediate suspension of the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants.

The parks authority did not confirm the incident, but on Saturday it imposed an indefinite ban on hunting outside Zimbabwe’s biggest park, from where Cecil had lived before being shot by a cross-bow and then a rifle last month.

His guide, Theo Bronkhorst, has denied allegations that they spent the next 40 hours tracking the wounded animal before finishing him off with a gun, instead saying they found the lion early the next morning and killed it with the crossbow.

Wildlife officials named the American as Jan Casimir Seski, who allegedly shot the rare beast in another illegal hunt. We’ll update this story if more developments arise. Protesters now joined by Zimbabwe’s environment minister, calling for Dr. Palmer to return there to answer for the killing of its most famous lion.

Jericho had been watching over the cubs and lionesses Cecil left behind, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force President Johnny Rodrigues told the Daily Mail. Cecil was a wild lion in Zimbabwe popular with locals and tourists.

Hwange is favored by hunters because of its teeming wildlife, Matipano said. Richard Chibuwe, deputy chief of the mission, said Zimbabwe takes the case very seriously and noted that two Zimbabwean men face court proceedings for helping Palmer.

A White house petition supporting the extradition of the dentist has now exceeded 100,000 signatures and an extradition treaty does exist between Zimbabwe and the United States. To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted.