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From Isdore Guvamombe in Hwange
TO many Zimbabweans Cecil, was a lion who shot to fame through his untimely death last month yet to many tourists and rangers, Cecil was that elegant old man who lackadaisically posed for pictures at unusually short distances 10 metres in Hwange National Park.

Lions in the wild are fast, sleek and dangerous and therefore very difficult to photograph. They shy away from people to the point of disappearing at the blink of an eye. But Cecil was different.

With a black-fringed mane tinged dark by 13 long years of survival, Cecil, had affectionately posed for pictures, giving tourists all the time to take pictures, before languidly ambling away. He was a rare spectacle!

Given the fatal territorial fights common to lions and the hard hunting excursions, Cecil had surpassed 10 years, the average lifespan for lions in the wild.

On another front Cecil was a participant research fellow being studied and tracked by the University of Oxford as part of a larger study on lions in the wild. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were poured into the research, which included putting a Geographic Position System (GPS) micro-chip collar on his neck to enable tracking him down.

Cecil was born in Hwange National Park in 2002 and he and another lion believed to be his brother started asserting their authority in Hwange National Park in 2008, in search of mating rights and territorial integrity.

In 2009, Cecil and his brother encountered an established pride, which resulted in a fight in which Cecil’s brother was killed and both Cecil and the leader he sought to dethrone were seriously wounded.

The dethroned leader was subsequently killed by park rangers because of the life threatening wounds he got in the epic fight with Cecil.

Cecil himself, retreated to another part of the park where he eventually established his own pride which had up to 22 members. In 2013, Cecil was dethroned by two young males and forced to flee to the eastern border of the park: the area that borders with Gwayi Conservancies.

There, he created a coalition with another lion named Jericho to establish two prides which consisted of Cecil, Jericho, half a dozen females and up to a dozen cubs sired by Cecil or Jericho.

The lions in the park, including Cecil, have been studied by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University as part of a scientific project that has run since 1999, and his movements had been followed since 2008.

Of the 62 lions tagged during the study period, 34 have died. When you add Cecil to the number, then you understand that his untimely death has dealt a deadly blow to the research. Then you also understand the outrage.

Researchers on the project said Cecil had become so popular because he was accustomed to people, allowing vehicles sometimes as close as 10 metres, making it easy for tourists and researchers to photograph and observe him. Well, that is too close.

In June 2015, Walter Palmer, an American dentist and recreational game hunter from Minnesota, reportedly paid $50,000 to a professional hunter and guide, Theo Bronkhorst in Gwayi Conservancy, to enable him to kill a lion.

Cecil was allegedly lured out of the sanctuary where he was shot and wounded with an arrow from a crossbow. He was subsequently tracked down, and approximately 40 hours later was killed with a rifle. Cecil was then skinned and his head was removed. When his headless skeleton was found by park investigators, his tracking collar was missing.

National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority have stated that neither Bronkhorst nor the landowner, Honest Ndlovu, on whose property Cecil was shot, had the appropriate permit for a lion

The killing drew international media attention and sparked outrage among animal conservationists, politicians and celebrities, as well as a strong negative internet response against Palmer, who has since gone into hiding.

When one or more new male lions oust or replace a previous male(s) associated with a pride, they often kill any existing young cubs so that their mothers can go on heat again. There are therefore, fears that Cecil’s six cubs could be killed by the new dominant male in the pride. But it seems Jericho has taken over the pride but has not killed Cecil’s cubs, and that he was also keeping the cubs safe from any rival males.

In the aftermath of Cecil’s “funeral” there has been a lot of movement to sort out illegal hunting of lions and other animals in Zimbabwe.

There has also been a suggestion by an NGO to erect Cecil’s statue at the main entrance of Hwange National Park.

But when all is said and done, Cecil’s death was not only a loss for Zimbabwe but for the entire tourism industry and the conservation world.