Uganda offers bounty on killers of 6 lions in national park
Lions at the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. File | Nation Media Group
What you need to know:
A bounty of USh10 million (about $2,857) has been offered to any individual with information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of the people behind the heinous act.
Kampala, Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) on Monday offered cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of killers of six lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park in western region.
A bounty of USh10 million (about $2,857) has been offered to any individual with information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of the people behind the heinous act, Bashir Hangi, UWA communications manager, said in a statement.
"We urge the public to join us in this fight (conserving wildlife) by giving us information in confidence so that the killers of our lions are brought to book," Hangi said.
"Conserving our wildlife resources is a duty for all Ugandans and we should all work together in fighting all forms of wildlife crime," he added.
On Saturday, the national wildlife conservation agency confirmed the lions died of poisoning.
This is not the first time that lions have been killed by poisoning in Uganda. In 2018, about 11 lions were poisoned to death in the same park by surrounding communities saying that the beasts were killing their cattle.
According to officials, before the death of the 11 lions in 2018, Uganda had an estimated 400 lions, with 100 of them residing in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Lions are a key tourism attraction in Uganda's national parks, while tourism is Uganda's top foreign exchange earner, contributing almost 10 percent of the country's GDP. The east African country earns 1.6 billion U.S. dollars from nature tourism annually.
