Beloved lion killed by trophy hunter in alleged ‘unethical' hunt
However, others allege the well-known lion was lured out of Hwange National Park and its protective zone where wildlife photographers helped make Blondie a household name in the park.
Africa Geographic, which sponsored the GPS collar on Blondie, reported that 'despite wearing a conspicuous research collar and being younger than the recommended minimum hunting age of six years, this young lion was lured out of a photographic concession and killed in what many are calling a deeply unethical hunt.'
Africa Geographic also reported that sources say the hunt took place legally with all required permitting in place, and the professional guide is allegedly a member of the Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association.
One source told Africa Geographic that Blondie was 5 years, 3 months old and was the dominant male of a pride that included three adult females and 10 cubs. Zimbabwe hunting regulations mandates a minimum age of 6 years for lions trophy hunted, with hunts to focus on mature, non-pride males.
'According to reports from operators in the area, Blondie was last seen in his core range in June 2025,' Africa Geographic stated. 'Observations suggest that he was baited out of the photographic concession over a period of several weeks and lured into the hunting area, where he was subsequently shot. The entire pride reportedly followed him during this period.
'There are concerns that the Professional Hunter [i.e. the guide] involved in the hunt was aware that Blondie was collared and that he had dependent cubs. It has been reported that, two weeks prior to the hunt, the hunter confirmed seeing Blondie with cubs and lionesses. When approached by AG for his side of the story, the PH declined to comment, other than to say that the hunt was 'conducted legally and ethically.''
LionExpose, which investigates and exposes wildlife exploitation and abuse, on Facebook claimed Blondie was lured and baited intentionally. It named the hunter, the guide and guide service, and the owner of the land on which the lion was shot.
'As the sponsor of Blondie's research collar, we are dismayed and angered by this development,' Africa Geographic CEO Simon Espley said. 'That Blondie's prominent collar did not prevent him from being offered to a hunting client, confirms the stark reality that no lion is safe from trophy hunting guns. He was a breeding male in his prime, making a mockery of the ethics that ZPGA regularly espouses and the repeated claims that trophy hunters only target old, non-breeding males.'
Also on FTW Outdoors: Covert operation uncovers illegal activities by fisherman
The incident is reminiscent of Cecil the lion, who was said to have been lured out of the protected area of Hwange National Park and was then shot and killed with a compound bow by an American trophy hunter. Walter Palmer, a dentist, reportedly paid $50,000 to a Zimbabwean professional hunter/guide for the hunt.
The hunter was never charged, but two Zimbabweans involved in the hunt were briefly arrested, though charges were eventually dismissed.
Cecil, 13 years old at the time of his death in 2015, was well known in the park and generated thousands of dollars in revenue from wildlife photographers. He wore a GPS collar and was identified by his black-fringed mane.
Cecil's death gained international attention, and as a result of the negative fallout, it was reported that significantly fewer hunters came to Zimbabwe in the months that followed. The Telegraph reported that the 'Cecil effect' left the park at risk of having to cull 200 lions due to an overpopulation of lions.
Photos of Blondie by Owen Grobler of Searching for Spots used by permission.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Legendary lion studied by Oxford University shot dead by poachers
A legendary lion studied by Oxford University experts has been shot dead by poachers. Blondie, the last known descendant of the Somadada pride, was killed outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. At just five years old, the animal's life was claimed by trophy hunters close to the African country's largest natural reserve. This attack occurred during the week of Sunday, June 29, just three months after research experts had worked with the lion. READ MORE: Jeremy Clarkson sends cheeky message to gunships over Diddly Squat Blondie with his cubs. (Image: Shamiso Pakimisa) Blondie was fitted with a GPS collar by Oxford experts to help track him as well as his 10 cubs and three adult females. This long-term study was cut short as the trophy hunters led the majestic animal away from Hwange National Park using chunks of meat. This was due to the park being an area where hunting is prohibited, so Blondie was lured away to be shot dead. The Daily Mail reports there are now concerns that a professional hunter was involved and was aware that the lion was collared and had dependent cubs. READ MORE: Jeremy Clarkson launches new Hawkstone cider with unique flavour Help support trusted local news Sign up for a digital subscription now: As a digital subscriber you will get: Unlimited access to the Oxford Mail website Advert-light access Reader rewards Full access to our app Africa Geographic chief executive Simon Espley said: "As the sponsor of Blondie's research collar, we are dismayed and angered by this development. "That Blondie's prominent collar did not prevent him from being offered to a hunting client, confirms the stark reality that no lion is safe from trophy hunting guns. "He was a breeding male in his prime, making a mockery of the ethics that ZPGA (Zimbabwe Professional Guides Association) regularly espouses and the repeated claims that trophy hunters only target old, non-breeding males." The hunter declined to comment according to Africa Geographic, but said: "[The hunt was] conducted legally, and ethically." A photograph has since surfaced showing the trophy hunters kneeling down beside Blondie's body.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
I talked to two people Russia recruited to help Trump. It's no hoax.
Russia's role in the 2016 presidential campaign has been resuscitated by President Donald Trump in a desperate effort of deflection. We here in Palm Beach County, Florida, have firsthand information that what President Donald Trump calls the 'Russia, Russia, Russia hoax' was no hoax at all. Russia's role in the 2016 presidential campaign has been resuscitated by Trump in a desperate effort of deflection, as his own supporters call for transparency in the mountain of crimes against teenage girls still hidden in the Jeffrey Epstein files. So, lately, Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been bolstering the specious claim that Russian interference in the election of Trump in 2016 was mostly a fantasy cooked up by his political opponents in the United States. Gabbard blames the Obama administration for changing the intelligence assessment to focus on, as she put it, 'not if but how Moscow attempted to influence the outcome of the U.S. election.' This would be a good time to point out to anybody who imagines Gabbard is being truthful that there is no 'if' in Russia's attempt to support Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. There is only a 'how' – and to acknowledge that isn't treasonous. It's historically undeniable. Here's one way Russia got involved If you don't believe me, consider this: We here in Palm Beach County got a firsthand look at how Russian operatives used unwitting locals in an attempt to sway voters toward Trump. In the summer of 2016, Anne Marie Thomas, a choir singer in Jupiter, and Harry Miller, a retiree from Leisureville in Boynton Beach, were recruited over the telephone to be key players in a political rally held at CityPlace in West Palm Beach a few months before the election. These two politically active Trump supporters thought they were talking to college students from Texas who were organizing campaign events in Florida on that day. But according to a subsequent FBI investigation, the alleged U.S. college students were really operatives working out of a troll farm in Russia, organizing pro-Trump rallies in America. Opinion: Gabbard yells 'Russia hoax' to distract MAGA from Epstein for Trump. It won't last. The Russians used a Facebook group called 'Being Patriotic' and a Twitter account called 'March for Trump' to organize pro-Trump flash-mob rallies in about 20 Florida cities, the FBI later found. "On August, 20, we want to gather patriots on the streets of Floridian towns and cities and march to unite America and support Donald Trump!" the Russian trolls posted on another social media site called "Florida Goes Trump.' "Our flash mob will occur in several places at the same time." Russian operatives paid these Florida residents hundreds The Russian operatives sent Thomas a script and about $500 to $600, she later told me, to come up with a Hillary Clinton mask and a costume for herself. Miller was likewise paid hundreds of dollars by the Russians, which he used to buy materials from Lowe'sto build a cage in the back of his pickup, which would hold the imprisoned 'Hillary' in the Russian-provided script. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Thomas and Miller were eager stooges for this political pageant. 'It was fun,' Miller later told me. And it didn't bother Miller, he said, that he was duped by Russians meddling in the U.S. election. 'How would I know the guy was Russian?' he told me. 'He had an accent, but I thought he was one of those Muslims, and I figured, he was a new immigrant and I'd work with him because he wants to be involved.' Opinion: You're paying attention to the wrong conspiracy ‒ A message from the White House Thomas recruited her boyfriend to play Bill Clinton in their script, and came up with some of her own script enhancements in addition to the lines provided by the Russians. 'I wore a shirt that had prison number 09112012 on it,' Thomas told me about the date when a terrorist attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. 'That was my idea.' Russian election interference: There is no 'if,' only 'how' The script had Thomas (Hillary) with a skillet in her purse, which she was supposed to use to clobber her boyfriend, dressed in a Bill Clinton mask, as he was trying to grope young women passing by. 'In the script I was supposed to say, 'Where are my emails?' and they gave me some jokes,' Thomas said. Their little sidewalk pageant at CityPlace culminated in trying to get the crowd to chant 'Lock her up!' and having Thomas being placed in Miller's makeshift jail cell on his pickup. The Russians that masterminded this CityPlace event asked for pictures and videos. I'm guessing they wanted a keepsake for their handiwork, and probably a chance to show off their election-meddling skills to their coworkers over celebratory shots of vodka. This event came to light in 2018 when special counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies with interfering in the 2016 presidential elections through fake social media accounts that helped Trump. Thomas and Miller were interviewed for hours by FBI agents, who found them to be unaware of their puppet masters. "They're trying to connect Trump to Russia," Miller told me. "But I was the guy dealing with the Russians, not Trump." So don't let Trump and Gabbard – who has been called 'our girlfriend Tulsi' on Russian state TV – get away with rewriting history to whitewash Moscow's attempts to subvert our elections. There is no 'Russia, Russia, Russia hoax." Russian campaign interference to help Trump happened right here in Palm Beach County. We have the receipts. There is no 'if.' Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, where this column originally published. He can be reached at FCerabino@ You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Jilted Barneys heir alleges family evaded $20M in New York taxes — by falsely claiming late mother lived in Palm Beach
A jilted heir to the fallen Barneys luxury dynasty has accused his late mother and siblings of orchestrating an elaborate tax fraud scheme that allegedly cheated New York state out of $20 million, The Post has learned. Bob Pressman – the 71-year-old grandson of Barney Pressman, who founded the now-defunct retail icon in 1923 – alleges in an explosive lawsuit that his family conspired to avoid New York state income and estate taxes by falsely claiming that his mother Phyllis Pressman resided in West Palm Beach, Fla. In fact, the widow of retail legend Fred Pressman – who famously transformed his father Barney's men's suit business into a luxury empire in the 1960s – had been living year-round in her oceanfront mansion in Southampton, NY for the last six years of her life, the suit claims. 7 Bob Pressman stands next to his mother, Phyllis Pressman, at a dinner in 2009. 'Phyllis Pressman freely told the people around her that she did not like Florida and did not intend to make it her permanent home,' the complaint alleges. The estate of Phyllis Pressman – who died last year at 95 and who, according to the suit, 'was renowned for her exacting and highly developed taste and sophistication' – is said to be worth upwards of $100 million, according to a source close to the case. That includes the 2.3-acre, oceanfront spread at 346 Meadow Ln. in Southampton that's currently on the block for $38.5 million. Her swanky Upper East Side apartment, listed for $3.95 million, is in contract. Some of the late matriarch's jewelry and artwork also are slated for auction this fall by Freeman's-Hindman. They will include pieces from Bulgari, Harry Winston and Van Cleef & Arpels; and paintings by American artists Frederick Carl Frieseke, Edward Henry Potthast, William Merrett Chase and Robert Reid. 7 Elizabeth-Pressman Neubardt was unveiling a new jewelry collection for Barneys in 2005. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images As exclusively reported by The Post. Bob Pressman had previously worked on an as-yet unpublished manuscript for an incendiary tell-all book that blamed his family for Barney's demise. Pressman was cut out of his mother's will after years of family squabbling, capped by his refusal to participate in the alleged tax fraud, according to a source close to the case. A trust agreement drawn up by Phyllis's attorneys declared, 'Bob doesn't get anything for reasons he well knows,' a source close to the case told The Post. 7 Phyllis Pressman 'was renowned for her exacting and highly developed taste and sophistication.' Michael Schwartz/New York Post Bob's sisters Elizabeth and Nancy, who were buyers for Barneys, sued him several years after the retailer's 1996 bankruptcy, accusing him of cheating them out of $30 million from the business. Bob, who was in charge of the company's finances at the time, denied the allegations. 'The Pressman sisters are trying to reinvent issues that have been thoroughly reviewed, and resolved or dismissed in conjunction with the Barneys Inc. Chapter 11 case confirmed by the bankruptcy court over six months ago,' Bob Pressman said in a statement at the time. 'They simply do not like that result,' he added. A New York judge awarded the sisters $11.3 million in 2002. Their brother appealed the award. Meanwhile, Bob's tell-all manuscript accuses his brother Eugene Pressman – better known as Gene – of running Barneys into the ground with lavish spending projects, even as he allegedly spent his time partying through the 1980s at Studio 54. At the time, Gene fired back, accusing his brother of having 'a casual relationship with the truth' and claiming 'Bob conveniently forgets he was in fact the co-CEO responsible for the financial stability of firm, a role in which by all measures he massively failed.' 7 Gene Pressman ran Barneys with his brother Bob after their father Fred passed away in 1996. New York Post The book proposal, by contrast, claims that Bob 'argued with his family all the time when the Barneys New York Madison Avenue store was being built,' protesting the massive tab that was being run up. Bob's new lawsuit – which is only coming to light now after a judge unsealed it last week – claims that the allegedly tax-cheating members of the Pressman family could be liable for upwards of $50 million in back taxes and penalties. An amended complaint filed in New York state Supreme Court in September lists Bob Pressman as a whistleblower under the New York False Claims Act, which could entitle him up to 30% of any recovery. He filed his original complaint last July. According to the suit, Phyllis originally moved to West Palm Beach in 2000 – four years after her husband Fred died – when she married her second husband, philanthropist Joseph Gurwin. Gurwin, whose fortune came from military equipment including gas masks and bulletproof vests, died in 2009. Phyllis continued to live in Palm Beach until 2018, when she moved back to New York full time, according to the suit. 7 Barneys was a luxury fixture on Madison Avenue. Frank Leonardo/New York Post In mid-2021, Phyllis Pressman 'successfully recruited' her children Gene, Elizabeth and Nancy to falsely assert that she lived most of the year in Palm Beach' in her estate's legal documents – after Bob had refused to do so, according to the complaint. As part of the alleged scheme, Gene, Elizabeth and Nancy in late 2023 – just a few months before Phyllis died – helped move their mother to hospice care in Palm Beach 'when she was ill and should not have been traveling,' even as they transferred the Hamptons mansion to a limited liability company, according to the suit. As a result, the three siblings 'all increased the size of their inheritance from Phyllis Pressman because they helped the Estate avoid the New York estate taxes that it was obligated to pay,' the suit claims. 7 Fred Pressman transformed Barneys into a high fashion destination for European proof of Phyllis's New York residency from 2018 on, the complaint alleges that she had her prescriptions filled at a local Southampton pharmacy, regularly used the landline at her oceanfront home, and employed two aides at the house. Bob Pressman declined to comment on the complaint, as did his sisters Elizabeth and Nancy. Gene Pressman did not respond to a calls and emails requesting comment. The siblings were notified about the lawsuit within the past couple of weeks, Bob Pressman's attorney Randall Fox told The Post. If successful, it would be among the top five such cases brought in New York. 7 Barneys was founded by Barney Pressman in 1923. The New York Post The Empire state has recovered $674 million from deadbeat filers since 2010 when it established the Taxpayer Protection Bureau, of which Fox was the founding bureau chief. The largest individual settlement under the False Claims Act was for $105 million, which was paid in 2021 by Swedish hedge fund manager Thomas Sandell. He allegedly set up a shell office in Boca Raton, Fla. to avoid paying taxes on his NYC business, according to the New York Attorney General's office. Sandell did not admit wrongdoing.
