Wildlife prices are tumbling in South Africa as game breeders are squeezed by restrictions imposed on trophy hunting after Cecil the lion was killed, and the worst drought on record has forced farmers to sell animals.

The average price of a buffalo bull fell 71 per cent to 95,704 rand ($7300) in 2016 and is now a fraction of the record 2.1 million rand set in 2013, auction house Vleissentraal said.

Walter Palmer, left, poses with the body of Cecil the lion and an unidentified man, after hunting and wounding him with his bow, and shooting him 40 hours later.

Prices of golden wildebeest, black impala and kudu bulls have dropped by 60 to 80 per cent.

"There has been an onslaught on the trophy hunting industry and that has fed through to prices," Peet van der Merwe, a professor of wildlife and tourism at South Africa's North West University, said.