A safari company has cancelled a controversial raffle that offered hunters the chance to kill a lion at a conservation area in Zimbabwe.

Martin Nel Safaris had been selling 100 tickets at $1,500 each for the chance to win an 18-day safari in the Bubye Valley Conservancy.

The winner would have been chosen during a draw at a Safari Club International convention in Las Vegas on Feb. 5. He or she could choose between killing a lion or taking photos as a male lion was collared for research.

“The whole idea of it was to actually raise money for conservation,” said Martin Nel, who said he decided to cancel the raffle on Sunday. “Through irresponsible reporting, it’s been blown out of proportion. That is why it’s been removed.”

“People have asked me to take it off so I’ve taken it off,” he said.

The raffle drew criticism after media reports linked it to the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), an Oxford University research project.

WildCRU had collared and studied Cecil, the lion whose death at the hands of an American dentistsparked a global outcry.

The raffle “takes lion trophy hunting to a new low,” lion conservation group LionAid said.

“We do hope that Oxford University’s WildCRU will reconsider their response to this raffle and publicly condemn it as it will occur in one of WildCRU’s lion research project areas.”

For its part, WildCRU said it was “completely unaware of the initiative and are not party to it,” in a statement posted on its website.

“We have been asked whether WildCRU endorses the proposal to auction a lion hunt and whether, if it were offered, we would accept a donation arising from such an auction; the answer to both questions is no.”

Neena Gill, a member of the European Parliament for West Midlands in the U.K., also commented on the controversy: “‘win a lion’ scandalous example of how precious #wildlife squandered. #EU needs to help tackle #trophyhunting,” she wrote on Twitter.

Martin Nel Safaris said the money raised would have benefited the Bubye Valley Conservancy Zimbabwe’s lion research program. According to his website, Nel has organized safaris within the conservancy since 2010.

In a statement on its website, the conservancy said the raffle “was the sole initiative of a professional hunter who has dedicated his career to conservation and the better understanding of wildlife.”

It said the conservancy is “honoured that the professional hunters who work here would spend their personal time and effort independently attempting to raise funds that will ensure continued unbiased research.”

The group said the raffle had nothing to do with WildCRU, which was initiated in the conservancy area in 2009.

The death of Cecil the lion sparked a debate last July over regulated trophy hunting across Africa. Some argue that killing wild animals helps protect the various species’ and boosts local economies, while others dispute how much local communities truly benefit.

On its website, the conservancy said nearly 500 lion currently call the conservancy home, “which is of concern to management and conservationists alike because of the negative impact that these super predators can have on just about all other animal populations, including those of predators.”

But Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, strongly disagrees that hunting is necessary to protect animal populations.

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“It just doesn’t make sense. These animals, if they’re left alone, they will manage themselves well without human interference. They were here before humans and they should remain so,” Rodrigues told the Star in a telephone interview.

He called the raffle “disgusting” and “sick” and said he had hoped that hunting and conservation groups would have stopped killing lions for trophies after Cecil’s death.

“Why are they doing this? It’s very shocking,” Rodrigues said. “All this has to stop. We have to bring in new laws and people shouldn’t make money at the expense of the animals.”