Jeremy Clarkson fresh jibe at F1 amid claims he is 'no longer allowed' to criticise sport | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV It is estimated that if the slaughter continues at the current rate the animals could be extinct within five years. Indian Men's Hockey team, Amit Panghal in action-Sports News, Firstpost The largest threat to the wild lions’ existence is trophy hunters, 64 percent of whom are American. They exterminate 19,000 wild animals a year in Africa. Working alongside the 1,200 professional big-game hunters in Southern Africa, these men – and they are nearly all men – can pay up to $64,000 for the “privilege” of killing a wild lion. (It can set them back as much as $400,000 to shoot the even more endangered rhino).īut that’s not the only threat to wild lions. They are also menaced by hunters who want to utilise their body parts in medicine and soups in the Far East. It is this demand that has already virtually wiped out the wild tiger. The details of a hunt may be surprising to many. Sometimes the hunters start by killing a hippo to use as bait for the lions. In the aftermath of a kill, the corpses are cleaned of all blood, so the hunter can pose beside a propped-up, dead animal that still looks alive. That is also the reason why lions are never shot in the head, but suffer a more slow and painful death through repeated body shots.

Hunters might then pay a taxidermist $50,000 for their “trophies” to be stuffed and mounted.

It is a subject that excites strong emotions.

On his US chat show, Jimmy Kimmel launched a tearful diatribe against Palmer, asking: “Why are you shooting a lion? How is that fun?” When Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist, shot dead and decapitated a famous lion called Cecil in a legal hunt in Zimbabwe in 2015, it captured headlines and caused outrage worldwide. #Undercover girl game over professional.