, South Africa's second city, hunter Theo Bronkhorst said: "I don't believe I failed in any duties at all. I was engaged by a client to do a hunt for him and we shot an old male lion that I believed was past his breeding age." Mr Bronkhorst did however admit that the lion was wearing a GPS tracking collar, fitted by researchers from Oxford University in order to study his behaviour. It should have kept Cecil, who was known as a symbol of national pride, safe. It should also have been returned to the competent authorities, but this was not done. Mr Bronkhurst said that both he and his client, Mr Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, were totally devastated when they realised that the lion was wearing a collar, because they hadn't caught even a glimpse of it before they shot him. He also tried to assert that he had not noticed it simply because it was nighttime and too dark. He admitted that abandoning the collar alongside the bait was stupid and sloppy. He added that they had obtained a permit to hunt with a bow and arrow (the preferred method of Mr Palmer, a rich American trophy hunter), had a licence to kill the lion, and had acted in broad daylight. South Africa's Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri said, however, that this sort of hunting is not allowed under local law. It was not known where he had been killed, but it would have been elsewhere, after at least 40 hours of agonising flight, since Mr Palmer's arrow had only succeeded in wounding him and he had to be finished off with a rifle, a weapon that Mr Palmer claimed never to carry on the grounds that it was not "sporting". (AGI)