Cecil the Lion's son killed by trophy hunter
Memories of Cecil the Lion and his untimely demise in 2015, at the hands of an American dentist on a hunting trip, are resurfacing after a national park in Zimbabwe reported Thursday that the famous lion's son was shot and killed.
Xanda, a 6-year-old lion living in Hwange National Park, was reportedly shot on a trophy hunt organized by a professional hunter, Richard Cooke, who has a Zimbabwe-based safari service listed online.
The park reported that Cooke had previously hunted Xanda's brother in 2015, who was a 4-year-old lion. Xanda has several young cubs.
In an interview with the Telegraph, a researcher who was monitoring Xanda's movements with an electronic collar explained that Xanda was killed outside the park and that Cooke's hunt was legal.
Cecil, who was similarly killed outside park boundaries when he was 13 years old, left behind 13 sons and daughters, including Xanda.
Topics Animals
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
