A clouded leopard cub at a zoo in France in September 2018 (Sebastien Bozon / AFP)

This leopard cub’s mother was not killed by a trophy hunter

This article is more than five years old.
Published on March 18, 2020 at 15:58
1 min read
By AFP USA

A Facebook post shared more than 200,000 times claims that a photo shows a leopard cub whose mother was killed by a trophy hunter. This is false; the picture was posted on social media by the San Diego Zoo, which has said the cub was born at a zoo in Tennessee.

“This little guy was rescued after his mother was murdered by a hunter,” says text accompanying a photo of the cub sitting on a person’s lap, which has been shared on Facebook here, here and here.

“If you want to ban trophy hunting forever, spread this everywhere,” it says.

A screenshot of a Facebook post taken on March 17, 2020

The photo in the post is a mirror image of pictures posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by the San Diego Zoo showing a clouded leopard cub named Ganda.

“I can confirm that the leopard’s mother didn’t die and the cub came to us from the Nashville Zoo,” Andrew James, a spokesperson for San Diego Zoo Global, told AFP by email.

The false claim about the photo was previously debunked by Africa Check.

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