An American dentist is in hot water after killing Cecil the lion, a famous animal in one of Zimbabwe’s national parks.
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Walter Palmer somehow found a firm to represent him as his name trends all over Twitter and the general news media, and pretty much everyone has identified Minnesota’s J.
He continued, “I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite… I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt”, he said.
Yelpers have also taken justice in their own hands and have left scathing reviews on Palmer’s Yelp page for his dentistry practice.
APPHOTO LON814: In this frame grab taken from a November 2012 video made available by Paula French, a well-known, protected lion known as Cecil strolls around in Hwange National Park, in Hwange, Zimbabwe.
This emerged yesterday as two Zimbabweans, whom Palmer reportedly paid $50000 to assist him, arrived in court to face poaching charges.
“He was very, very popular”, Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, tells NPR’s Audie Cornish.
Felts said there is something positive coming out of the death of Cecil the Lion. In 2008 Palmer pleaded guilty to a license violation after shooting a black bear in Wisconsin, according to the Star-Tribune.
“Hunting is a coward’s pastime”, said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk in the statement.
The head of Zimbabwe’s safari association says the killing was unethical and can’t even be classified as a hunt, since the lion had been illegally lured into the kill zone.
Palmer shot Cecil in early July in Zimbabwe after hiring a pair of local guides to bait the animal out of the conservation park.
Cecil’s death may also cause the killing of the lion’s four male cubs as male members fight for leadership of the pack, wildlife authorities said.
Palmer is well-known in US hunting circles as an expert shot with his bow and arrow, and has travelled across the world in pursuit of leopards, buffalo, rhino, elk and other large mammals. Palmer says he was not aware that the lion was a protected animal, and regrets what happened.
While shedding light on this tragedy, Kimmel wanted to have some good come out it. He urged people to donate to the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford, the wildlife preservation group who had been keeping track of and studying Cecil.
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Zimbabwean authorities have arrested two men over the killing: Theo Bronkhorst, a hunter, and Honest Ndlovu, a farm owner, who were charged with poaching after allegedly hunting without a proper permit.
