An Oscar-nominated animator who worked on Disney classic The Lion King has painted a tribute to Cecil the lion, the Zimbabwe safari icon killed last month by an American hunter.
Aaron Blaise posted a time-lapse recording of his work on the digital project, which features an image of Cecil in the heavens watched by his Earthbound descendants. A quote, referencing a line originally spoken by Simba’s father Musafa in the African-set 1994 animated musical, reads: “Look at the stars. The great kings from the past look down upon us from those stars.”
Blaise, who also worked on Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas, said he produced the image to help highlight issues surrounding the killings of African animals by western hunters.
“As you may be able to tell I am a HUGE animal lover and it drives me crazy when I see these beautiful creatures destroyed for no good reason,” he wrote on his website. “In fact, I’ve decided to get personally involved and hopefully our efforts can help educate people and prevent these horrible things from happening in the future. It’s not much, but hopefully it will make people think.”
Anger over the illegal killing of Cecil, one of Africa’s best-known lions, continues to reverberate. On Friday, Zimbabwe’s environment minister called for the extradition of the Minneapolis dentist Walter James Palmer, 55, to face poaching charges. Palmer has admitted killing the 13-year-old lion but said in a statement that he had hired professional guides and believed the required hunting permits were in order.
On Tuesday three US airlines, Delta, American and United, said they would no longer ship lion, leopard, elephant, rhino or buffalo killed by trophy hunters in the wake of Cecil’s death. The furore over the animal’s killing has also led to other US hunters receiving criticism and threats of prosecution.
Blaise spent 21 years at Disney, also producing art for Aladdin and Mulan, and was nominated for the best animated feature Oscar for his work as co-director of 2003’s Brother Bear.
