Rhino kills 'experienced' tour guide in Zimbabwe game park
An experienced tour guide has been crushed to death by a rhino he was tending to at the Imire Game Park, Zimbabwe, a reserve about 25 miles from Harare.
According to Kate Travers, director of the park, Tafadzwa Gosho died on Monday night after he was crushed by the rhino at the private nature reserve. In a report by the Associated Press, Travers explained that Gosho was "an experienced rhino handler" and the attack was a rare one.
The park is described in its website as an "intensive black rhino breeding station" and has been known for its tradition of releasing animals into their wild habitat, with 11 rhinos successfully brought back to their natural homes.
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Gosho's death comes after a lion mauled Quinn Swales to death, a tour guide at the Hwange National Park, while he was walking with a number of tourists around the park.
Zimbabwe has been the hot topic for wildlife tourism for the past several months, starting with the infamous killing of Cecil the lion, who lived at the same park where Swales was killed by another lion named Nhaxa.
According to numerous reports, the 13-year-old lion was lured by illegal hunters paid by American dentist and trophy hunter Walter Palmer. The lion was shot with a crossbow, tracked for 40 hours as he struggled to walk away from his assailants and was shot with a rifle. Finally, Cecil was decapitated and skinned.
Palmer, who was condemned not only by animal lovers around the world but by his own country, later issued an apology, as recorded by The Telegraph, that stated how he "deeply regrets" what he and his team had done, as he was unaware that Cecil was loved.
Two people suspected to have been part of the illegal hunt will soon go to trial and have called for Palmer to turn himself in to the Zimbabwe government and face charges of his own.
While a petition signed by more than 1 million people to date has demanded that Zimbabwe stop handing out permits for hunters of endangered animals, the local government and American authorities have placed the incident under investigation.
