Both lions were killed south of the park, which has become surrounded by human settlement since it was established in 1946.

“Before construction started in the park, the lions were not escaping, so there are indications that the noise and blasting is affecting their movements,” Robert Ndetei, species conservation manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s Nairobi office, told Reuters.

The killings drew outrage in Kenya and online, and they highlighted the threat posed to wildlife by the loss of their habitat to expanding development.

“I had not fully appreciated the depth of my feelings about animals and the outdoors until I saw the video of that ranger slaughtering the lion in Isinya on Wednesday,” wrote Mutuma Mathiu in a column for The Daily Nation, Kenya’s largest newspaper, on Thursday. “I felt as if he had, without cause, killed a close relative.”

Wildlife rangers discovered Lemek’s speared body “under a large thicket beside a dry riverbed” near Old Kitengela township, 12 miles south of Nairobi, the service said in a statement. The area is roughly two miles south of the park’s southern tip.