A PROFESSIONAL hunter implicated in the killing of ‘Cecil’, the country’s best-known lion, appeared at the Hwange Magistrates Court yesterday charged with failure to prevent an illegal hunt.
BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
Theo Bronkhorst (52) of Bernafay Lane, Riverside surburb in Bulawayo, was not asked to plead to the charge when he appeared before Hwange provincial magistrate Lindiwe Maphosa.
Bronkhorst, who runs Bushman Safaris, was granted $1 000 bail coupled with stringent reporting conditions and remanded to August 5.
The conditions include surrendering his passport to the clerk of court, reporting twice a week at Hillside Police Station, staying at his given address and not interfering with police investigations until the matter has been finalised.
He was represented by lawyer Givemore Muvhiringi. His co-accused Trymore Honest Ndlovu a private game park owner, is likely to appear in court today after their cases were separated.
The lion’s killer Walter James Palmer Palmer, who left Zimbabwe after killing the country’s prized lion on July 1, has not yet been subpoenaed to appear in court to face poaching charges.
The endangered animal was skinned and beheaded early this month.
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Palmer (55), has admitted to killing the lion on July 1, but said he believed it was a legal hunt. The American hunter and dentist is alleged to have paid $55 000 to locals to assist him in the hunt.
Cecil was fitted with a GPS collar for a research project by scientists from Oxford University. He was one of the oldest and most famous lions in Zimbabwe.
Wildlife officials say Cecil was lured out of cage with a bait and was shot with a bow and arrow by Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota who has since received a torrent of abuse on social media.
Palmer said he had not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or the United States but would assist in any inquiries.
He was once convicted for poaching a bear in the United States.
Cecil, who was 13, was a prized lion at Hwange National Park, where visitors reportedly sighted him frequently.
A video of the animal, regal, indifferent and sleepy-eyed, has been widely disseminated.
He was a participant in a study that Oxford University in Britain was conducting, and he had been outfitted with a GPS collar.
An animal protection group said Cecil’s death was sad “not only from an animal welfare perspective, but also for conservation reasons”.
African lion populations have fallen almost 60% over the past three decades, and as few as 32 000 of them remain in the wild, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said.
“As troubling as it is, the rarer these trophy hunted animals become, the more hunters are willing to pay to kill them — like the American hunter who recently paid $350 000 to kill a critically endangered black rhino in Namibia,” said Jeff Flocken, the fund’s North American regional director.
More than 265 000 people have signed an online “Justice for Cecil” petition, calling on Zimbabwe’s government to stop issuing hunting permits for endangered animals
— Additional reporting by agencies.
