Jericho, Brother of Cecil The Lion, Not Shot And Killed, Despite Reports

There are conflicting reports that the brother of beloved Cecil the Lion, Jericho, has been shot and killed. Latest information says Jericho is fine.

Reports came flooding in this afternoon that Cecil the Lion’s brother, Jericho, had been shot and killed today. 

CNN, ABC News, and many major news outlets all reported on the death of Jericho, Cecil’s brother, but now several researchers are denying those reports.

“It is with huge disgust and sadness that we have just been informed that Jericho, Cecil’s brother has been killed at 4pm today,” the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force wrote on its Facebook page. “We are absolutely heart broken.”

Jericho “was reportedly gunned down during an illegal hunting operation in Hwange National Park,” the Daily Mail reported. But in an updated report, the Mail notes, “Shelley Cox, marketing manager of the African Bush Camps situated in Hwange said the news was false and insisted Jericho is alive and well.”

Reuters is reporting that “Brent Stapelkamp, field researcher for the Hwange Lion Research Project which is monitoring the lion with a GPS tag,” tells them Jericho “looks alive and well to me as far as I can tell.”

And most recently, the Guardian is reporting “a field researcher at Hwange Lion Research said on Saturday: ‘He looks alive and well.'”

“Nothing looks untoward, it looks like he’s been moving around all day and in fact he sent his last points at six minutes past eight our time,” Staplekamp said. 

Staplekamp said he would be checking in on the data again at 10.06pm local time. “Certainly, I’ve been asked to go and look for him tomorrow morning so I will confirm he is alive and send pictures to the world,” Staplekamp said.

Drew Abrahamson, whose Facebook page says she works for Wildlife Conservation Films, posted this message about an hour ago:

There were great concerns that upon Cecil’s death Jericho would kill his brother’s cubs, but he was actually protecting them. If he is dead, Cecil and Jericho’s lionesses and cubs are more likely to be killed.

Cecil, of course, is the protected lion whose reportedly illegal killing made headlines and provoked outrage around the world. He was shot with a bow an arrow, a violation of hunting regulations according to Oppah Muchinguri, Zimbabwe’s environment minister, then hunted for 40 hours until Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer shot and killed him.

Yesterday, Muchinguri called for the extradition of Palmer, adding Zimbabwe was “very happy” about the support her nation has been receiving on social media.

 

This is a breaking news story and details are expected to change. 

 

Image of Cecil the lion by Vince O’Sullivan via Flickr and a CC license