Overview

• Blondie was just five years old when trophy hunters shot him outside Hwange National Park despite Zimbabwe’s six-year minimum age requirement for lion trophies.
• Oxford University researchers had fitted Blondie with a GPS collar three months earlier to monitor his pride of ten cubs and three adult females as part of a long-term study.
• Hunters lured Blondie from the protected reserve using chunks of meat before shooting him in a permitted hunting area during the week of June 29.
• Victoria Falls Safari Services, whose co-owner Mike Blignaut organised the hunt, maintains that the operation complied with Zimbabwean law and was conducted ethically.
• Wildlife advocates warn that the loss of this prime breeding male could destabilise his pride and place his dependent cubs at greater risk.