Cecil the Lion

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On 1 July 2015, a much-loved lion was killed in Zimbabwe by an American trophy hunter.

Black-maned Cecil was one of the star attractions at Hwange National Park. He was baited outside the park and shot with a bow.

American dentist Walter Palmer, who reportedly paid a local guide $50,000 to shoot Cecil, was widely condemned. He said he didn’t know Cecil was a known local favourite and had relied on the expertise of a local professional guide to carry out a legal hunt.

He was cleared of any wrongdoing but the killing became international news and sparked a global debate about trophy hunting and its role in conservation.

Prof Andrew Loveridge, who had been tracking Cecil for the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, tells Vicky Farncombe about the moment he was told the lion had died.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Cecil the lion. Credit: Brent Stapelkamp)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, podcast fan. Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party. We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crosswires Festival. We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting, including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane, and some bloke called Greg James doing his Radio 4 show called Rewinder.
0:23.0	You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts, and the best part is free.
0:28.0	To book your free tickets, go to crossedwires.org-slash fringe.
0:44.6	Hi, this is the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Vicki Farncom, one of the team.
0:55.9	We're the podcast that takes you back to a significant moment in history and we bring it all to life through incredible archive and the amazing memories of one key witness.
1:00.4	Episodes are just nine minutes long and come out every weekday.
1:06.5	If that sounds like your thing, make sure you hit subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts and turn your push notifications on so you never miss a show.
1:11.6	Today, we're going back 10 years to when a much love lion was killed in Zimbabwe
1:17.2	by an American trophy hunter.
1:24.3	I was in the park at nightfall and I was tracking him so I knew he was around and he so came out of the sort of kind of thick bush onto the road and walked towards the vehicle and sat down almost by the passenger door.
1:38.3	And just sat there and you're sniffing the night air and just very relaxed.
1:42.3	You know, very beautiful and I think that would be my last sort of memory of him and how you was such a beautiful animal.
1:48.4	This is Professor Andrew Loveridge talking about his final sighting of Settle the Lion in Hwangi National Park in Zimbabwe.
1:57.2	Growing up in the southern African country, Professor Loveridge always knew he would work with animals.
2:03.6	My dad was also a zoologist and he was actually an animal physiologist, but he did a lot of research on crocodiles.
2:11.6	And he used to hatch their eggs at work and used to bring the baby crocodiles home and we used to have them in the bathtub at home.
2:19.2	Wow.
2:19.8	Which was kind of, yeah, so I guess I had a bit of an unusual upbringing from that point of view.
2:24.6	Wow. So I guess it was always inevitable that you'd go into.
2:28.5	Yeah, that I'd want to work on something with big tea.
2:31.2	The scientist first met Cecil in 2007 when he was looking for lions to track for Oxford
2:37.4	University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.
	...

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