The bloody record of hunter who killed sleeping lion

The hunter who shot a sleeping lion in a clip that caused outrage has been named as a churchgoer and longtime shooting enthusiast.

The hunter who shot a sleeping lion has been outed as Guy Gorney. Picture: Supplied

The trophy hunter who shot a sleeping lion in a video clip that caused outrage has been named as a churchgoer and longtime shooting enthusiast from Illinois. Guy Gorney, who hails from a small town southwest of Chicago, could be seen taking aim with a rifle mounted on a tripod at a lion sleeping at the edge of scrubland.

At the first shot the lion arches its back, legs in the air, and tries to roll to its feet. After two more it stops moving and a guide says: “OK, OK, don’t do any more.” The guide, who has a southern African accent, shakes his hand. “That, Mr Gorney, is a very nice lion,” he says. “Well done.” The clip’s location and vintage remained unclear but it caused outrage after it was shared online by an animal rights advocate based in the UK.

Mr Gorney, 64, told an Illinois television station in 2015 that he had been to Africa nine times and had shot 70 animals, including the “big five” — elephant, leopard, lion, rhino and buffalo.

“I really like hunting elephants. They’re difficult to track down … The first elephant I got, I walked over 120 miles before I caught up to him,” he told WBBM.

He also recalled shooting a buffalo that had injured someone. “The people that had benefited from the death of that animal cheered,” he said. He claimed that a photo he posted on his Facebook page, of himself straddling two lions he had killed in Zimbabwe, had made him a target in the past for an animal rights advocate.

As well as in Africa Mr Gorney has hunted in the mountains of northwest Canada and regards such trips as adventures in the spirit of President Theodore Roosevelt, a renowned hunter who died in 1919.

He believes hunting can aid conservation, and said he follows the law wherever he hunts.

Calls to Mr Gorney’s home phone went unanswered last night. He is a retired utilities executive who served, from 2005, as head an electricity company that operated coal-fired power plants.

The Times