Dwarf galaxy prangs led to Solar System
Sick Brit leads slaughter of penned-in young lions Author lists world’s worst trophy hunters
AMAZING View of Milky Way
LIFE on Earth began when the Milky Way took chunks out of a tiny dwarf galaxy almost six billion years ago, new research shows.
Our planet may have formed due to a city of stars called Sagittarius, first discovered in 1994, “disrupting” the Milky Way.
Ripples caused by the first of three collisions, 5.7 billion years ago, created the Sun and then the Solar System, scientists believe.
Lead author Dr Tomas Ruiz-Lara, of the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics, said the crash led “all the previously still gas and dust inside the larger galaxy to slosh around like ripples on the water”.
The new findings are among the results of the European Space Agency’s Gaia Project to create a 3D map of the Milky Way.
Posing with rifle and kill
POSING for a sickening photo, here is the Brit who arranges kills of young lions on South African safaris.
David Watt features in a book of the world’s most notorious trophy hunters in a vile industry that has led to more than 1.7 million animals being slaughtered for sport over a decade.
Watt, 72, of Doncaster, South Yorks, is seen next to a lioness killed by tourists on a trip with Nduna Safaris, where he works as international sales manager.
Experts say the animals, which are bred for hunting in enclosures, are no older than three or four years old.
Watt, who has worked at Nduna Safaris for 20 years, is one of seven British men named in the book, Trophy Hunters Exposed, Inside the Big Game Industry. The firm advertises hunts for lionesses and young males said to be “affordable” and “the hunt of a lifetime” and boasts of Watt’s “many years’ experience of travelling and working in Africa”.
“David will be pleased to arrange the necessary paperwork to bring your rifle to South Africa and provide a step by step guide,” it reads. The last wild lion trophy came to Britain in 2013. Since then all have been from captive lions, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species shows. Experts say the lions on the Nduna Safaris site were bred in captivity and shot on heavily fenced ranches. Linda
Park, director of Voice for Lions, said: “The lions are in pristine condition and do not show any of the ‘wear and tear’ one would expect in a wild lion.
“There are less than 10 wild lion hunts a year in South Africa. A wild lion is only supposed to be hunted when it is too old for breeding.”
The firm offers 40 species to hunt and trophy fees range from £240 for baboons to £2,800 for a giraffe. The prices of lions,
With a baboon trophy
elephants, leopards and rhinos are available on request.
Eduardo Goncalves, author of Trophy Hunters Exposed and founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, said: “What person enjoys making a living out of getting as many animals as possible killed for a laugh?”
Explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who wrote the foreword, said: “For a British sales director to be involved is a disgrace. People like this should be stripped of their citizenship.”
Actor and animal activist Peter Egan added: “We are facing an extinction crisis.”
The Mirror has been campaigning for a ban on the importation of animal trophies.
Mr Watt and Nduna Safaris were approached for comment.