Relax people: Cecil the Lion’s brother Jericho is alive and well

[Update, 8/2/15]: It turns out Jericho isn’t even Cecil’s brother. The Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WILDCRU) said this in a statement:

Many people have asked if Jericho and Cecil were brothers. They were not related though their bond was one close to brotherhood. Male lions often form what are termed co-operative ‘coalitions’ with unrelated males in order to better compete with other males for territories and prides. In fact 42% of male lion coalitions are genetically unrelated, though larger coalitions tend to be brothers or half-brothers.

CNN, ABC News, and many other media outlets are all reporting on the death of Jericho, Cecil’s the Lion’s brother. But according to Reuters, those reports are not true.

“Brent Stapelkamp, field researcher for the Hwange Lion Research Project which is monitoring the lion with a GPS tag, told Reuters that Jericho “looks alive and well to me as far as I can tell.”

The Guardian concurred, saying that “a field researcher at Hwange Lion Research said on Saturday: ‘He looks alive and well.’”

“Nothing looks untoward, it looks like he’s been moving around all day and in fact he sent his last points at six minutes past eight our time,” Staplekamp said.

Staplekamp said he would be checking in on the data again at 10.06pm local time. “Certainly, I’ve been asked to go and look for him tomorrow morning so I will confirm he is alive and send pictures to the world,” Staplekamp said.

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Cecil, who was 13-years-old, was famous and widely-loved lion in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, He was a participant in a study conducted by Oxford University and was outfitted with a GPS collar before he was hunted and killed by American dentist, Walter Palmer.

[The New Civil Rights Movement]

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