New Cecil The Lion Beanie Baby Sales To Be Donated To Wildlife Conservation

The company hopes the plush toy will provide comfort to those saddened by Cecil's death.

A toy company hopes the legacy of Cecil the lion will live on in a might way -- through a plushy animal that's raising donations.

Toy manufacturer Ty has created a Cecil the Lion Beanie Baby to honor the late lion and raise funds for wildlife conservation, with all profits from the toys’ sales going to the organization WildCRU, according to a press release.

"Hopefully, this special Beanie Baby will raise awareness for animal conservation and give comfort to all saddened by the loss of Cecil," said Ty Warner, the company’s founder and chairman.

PRNewsFoto/Ty Inc.

The Cecil Beanie Baby will retail for $5.99, according to the Chicago Tribune, and 100 percent of sales will be donated to WildCRU -- a wildlife conservation and research organization at the University of Oxford, in England.

The toy’s production joins a number of other initiatives around the globe in response to the great lion’s killing by American dentist Walter Palmer in July. Four Democratic senators on July 31 introduced the Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act, which would further restrict the import of sport hunting trophies.

On Saturday, the Empire State Building projected images and videos of 160 threatened species -- Cecil among them -- in a project organized by documentary filmmakers and the Oceanic Preservation Society.

And on Monday, Delta airlines announced it would ban the shipment of all rare African animals worldwide as freight.

The toy will be available at the end of September.

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Cecil The Lion Protests

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