Safari guide in Cecil’s park killed in attack by male lion

Police officials in Zimbabwe announced an adult male lion in Hwange National Park killed a guide in the same park that was home to a lion controversially killed by a U.S. dentist last month.

As reported by CBC, Quinn Swales, 40, was killed when a lion he was tracking as part of a tour double backed on him and attacked him.

Swales, professional guide of Camp Hwange, a safari tour company whose website claims to offer excellent views of the park, was leading a group of six tourists inside the refuge, and was armed with both a rifle and a “bear banger” firecracker device for defense against large predators.

While on their tour Swales found lion spoor and started to track a pride consisting of an adult male lion named Nxaha, two females and two cubs.

When Nxaha rose and started moving towards the tourists, Swales fired his bear banger and shouted, which forced the lion off momentarily before the animal turned back and charged the guide.

“Quinn [Swales] bore the full brunt of the charge and, unable to fire his rifle due to the speed of the attack, literally stopped the attack of the lion on his group by placing himself directly in harm’s way,” reads a post on Camp Hwange’s social media account. “Having been thrown to the ground, bitten in the shoulder and neck Quinn sadly died at the scene, the shouting of his guests driving the lion away from his body and allowing, ultimately unsuccessfully, emergency first aid to be performed.”

David Carson, the camp’s manager, stated the slain guide paid the ultimate price for a job he loved.

“Only praise and admiration can be given to Quinn in the professional way he unflinchingly faced the charging lion, thus ensuring that he protected the clients all of whom were unharmed in any way,” said Carson.

On July 1, Cecil, a 13-year-old male Southwest African lion, part of a University of Oxford research program in and around the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe was shot after Walter Palmer, a recreational big-game hunter and dentist from Minnesota, had originally wounded him with an arrow. Media attention, whipped up by anti-hunting groups and celebrities led to both an outpouring of donations to Oxford and a flood of hate mail and public vilification of Palmer.

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