Sad: lifeless trophy and lion-less world. Cecil the Lion killed in 2015 and his 6-year-old son in 2017

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The son of Cecil the Lion, the beloved animal killed two years ago by a Minnesota dentist, was shot dead near a Zimbabwe park, officials said.

Lion guardians at the Hwange National Park posted on Facebook Thursday that Xanda, a 6-year-old lion with a family of young cubs, was shot dead a few days ago. He was killed not far from where Cecil died.

"Today we heard that a few days ago, Xanda, the son of #CecilTheLion has been shot on a trophy hunt," the post read.

"We can't believe that now, 2 years since Cecil was killed, that his oldest Cub #Xanda has met the same fate," the park's lion guardians wrote on Facebook. "When will the Lions of Hwange National Park be left to live out their years as wild born free lions should."

In July 2015, 13-year-old Cecil the lion was lured out of the park boundary with food, shot with a crossbow, tracked for 40 more hours, then finished off with a gun, according to authorities. The big cat was skinned and his head reportedly cut off as a trophy.

The killer, Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer, his professional hunter guide and the owner of the land where the hunt took place were initially accused of an illegal hunt under the country's Parks and Wildlife Act. A decision was made later not to press charges against Palmer.

Masha Kalinina from Humane Society International condemned the shooting and urged Zimbabwe to trophy hunting altogether, citing Botswana and Kenya's conservation efforts.

"The killing of Xanda just goes to show that trophy hunters have learned nothing from the international outcry that followed Cecil's death. They continue at a time when lions face a conservation crisis in Africa, with as few as 20,000 lions left in the wild. Xanda was a well-studied lion like this father and critical to conservation efforts in Zimbabwe," Kalinina said.

African lion populations have fallen almost 60% over the past three decades.

Ninety percent of the overall lion population was lost over the last century, according to the Guardian, with the number of lions killed each year tripling to 1,500 in the past decade. The U.S. added lions to its endangered list two years ago.

The lion's killer was reportedly part of a trophy hunt led by Richard Cooke, a Zimbabwean hunter whose clients pay tens of thousands to kill exotic and dwindling animals for fun.

"Poachers and trophy hunters are driving lions to extinction. Fewer than 30,000 African lions - and possibly as few as 20,000 - are estimated to remain today," Masha Kalinina, international trade policy specialist for HSI, said in the statement. "Lions exist in 8 percent of their former range and are suffering from loss of habitat and prey in addition to poorly regulated trophy hunting."

Xanda had fathered several cubs before his death; his deceased dad, Cecil, was thought to have been survived by 13 sons and daughters and 15 "grandcubs," according to The Guardian.
The death of a male in his prime, as Xanda was, can have dramatic consequences for the pride and offspring he leaves behind.

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Photo courtesy Brent Stapelkamp and Eric Miller / Reuters