A ranger from the Kenya Wildlife Service shoots dead a male lion that had strayed from the Nairobi National Park, in Kajiado, Kenya Wednesday, March 30, 2016. A lion was shot dead in Kenya on Wednesday... (Associated Press) 
 
 JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A lion was shot dead in Kenya on Wednesday after attacking a man, while trackers in South Africa searched for a lion whose escape from a park prompted appeals to wildlife officials to relocate it rather than kill it. Also read: Lion guarded six hours, only for KWS rangers to shoot it dead 
 
 Resident Jason Parantai had called the Star at 6am, saying the lion had been spotted and residents informed local police.  1 of 10 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × The moment a lion is shot dead after attacking a man in Kenya View Photos Wildlife officials in Kenya shot the escaped lion several times after it injured a person in the Kajiado district, said Paul Udoto, a spokesman for the Kenya Wildlife Service. Another senior Kenyan wildlife official, Kitili Mbathi, blamed a faulty electrical fence for the lion's escape from Nairobi National Park. However, a later statement from the Kenya Wildlife Service said the lion was killed in a wildlife migration area outside the park's southern section, which is not fenced, and that the lion was trying to establish new territory. In a separate incident this month, a lion escaped from the park and mauled a man on a busy street in the capital. In South Africa, wildlife officials backtracked from earlier statements that they would kill a lion that escaped from Karoo National Park because it was a threat to humans.
– An escaped lion, a taunting crowd, and an ill-prepared first-response team came together in Kenya to cause what some are saying was the unnecessary, senseless death of the lion, the country's Star reports. Mohawk, a 13-year-old lion who was one of Nairobi National Park's most well-known creatures due to his trademark mane and rep as somewhat of a "ladies' lion," had escaped from an unfenced section of the park and ended up in the town of Isinya, where he was promptly surrounded by a jeering group of men, the Washington Post reports. Mohawk became upset by the noise and the growing crowd—Kenya Wildlife Service officials tell the AP about 400 had surrounded him—and lunged at a 27-year-old man, who was sent to the hospital with bruises and severe lacerations on his back. The wildlife service already had an animal management team on the scene, but those rangers had only rifles, not tranquilizers. After Mohawk pounced on the bystander, the rangers felt they couldn't wait for a second team on its way with tranqs—so they unleashed what the Star says was nine bullets, leaving the animal "roaring and writhing in pain" as he died. "If the rangers had the right equipment, this lion would not have died," a local resident tells the paper. "You can't keep a lion in the midst of people for so many hours without stressing it. We blame them for this heinous act." The shooting has prompted plenty of backlash on social media, including a #JusticeForMohawk hashtag, but the wildlife service says it had no choice once the lion started attacking humans. "This action was taken as a last resort after an escalation of the situation and a concern for public safety," the Kenya Wildlife Service says, per CNN. A bunch of lions have busted out of the park lately, driven by what conservationists say is the noise from development projects, including a highway being built through the park. (Same ending, different means for Cecil the lion.)