He died for more than a day: an American shot a lion with a bow in the reserve for 2 million
Nowadays, people with money can do anything, and if something is impossible, then you just need to pay a little more. An American amateur hunter killed a lion with a bow in a national reserve of Zimbabwe. For this cruel fun, the man paid the company that organized the safari, 30 thousand dollars (2.2 million rubles).
Animal rights activists quickly identified the hunter and published his data in the media. The killer turned out to be a simple internist Philip Smith from Missouri, USA. He has long been fond of hunting with a bow and once promised himself to kill one kind of all the large animals living in North America.
In 2019, Smith told in social networks about how he killed a polar bear in the north of Canada. He calls himself nothing else than "a passionate hunter with a bow". Obviously, Smith fulfilled his promise and got one animal of all major species in the United States and Canada, since he moved to Africa and is now exterminating rare animals there.
It is known that the lion shot by Smith was a large and healthy animal named Mopane. Moreover, he was the leader of two lion prides at once, which are now orphaned. Environmentalists are sure that the prides will become more vulnerable after the murder of Mopane.
Despite the fact that Philip Smith hunted with a bow, his prey can not be called honest. Before he killed the lion, he was lured out of the pride, and after the fatal shot, the animal was able to escape and died painfully for more than a day. Conservationists are outraged that lions are killed right on the territory of the reserve and the issue of hunting is easily solved for money.
Tinashe Faravo, an official of the Zimbabwean Nature Supervision Authority, responded to the activists ' request as follows:
Safari tours with the killing of animals are a common phenomenon for African nature reserves. This bloody entertainment is not for the poor – hunters pay several tens of thousands of dollars to the organizing company. Most often, Americans, Britons, residents of the UAE and China have fun like this. At the same time, if the guest has paid well, there are practically no restrictions for him.
That is why another famous African lion from Zimbabwe named Cecil died in 2015. The animal lived in a protected area and was the object of study by scientists from the University of Oxford. He was also killed by an American and, again, a medical dentist, Walter Palmer. The safari cost him 55 thousand dollars (4 million rubles).
Keywords: Africa | Nature reserve | Hunting | Wildlife | Safari | Bow