Cecil the lion: company sells £1,580 gold phone in memory of 'Cecil and His Kingdom'

The phone ‘will serve as a reminder of the beauty of nature’s wildlife and the importance of conserving it’, the company said

A company has created a £1,580, 24-karat gold phone in memory of Cecil the lion, the animal killed by a hunter last month.

The HTC One M9 is engraved with a picture of Cecil and a message that the phone is “For Cecil and His Kingdom”. It is made by Goldgenie, a company that specialises in putting gold on things that are otherwise not gold.

“At the heartbreaking news of the senseless killing of Cecil the Lion outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, Goldgenie were moved to do something to help towards the conservation of his environment and prevention of other tragic losses from the game reserve,” the company writes on the listing page on its website.

“Goldgenie’s designers decided to capture his beautiful shape with a special laser engraving for a limited edition range of 24k Gold embellished HTC One M9 smartphones.”

The company said that it believes that the gold phone “will serve as a reminder of the beauty of nature’s wildlife and the importance of conserving it”.

The company will give 10 per cent of the price of each phone to Friends of Hwange, a charity that works in the Hwange National Park where Cecil lived. People who don’t want to buy the phone and instead send money to the charity directly, using instructions on its website.