The Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, however, said Sunday that Seski was involved in an illegal hunt.
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A government statement said a crackdown on illegal hunting since Cecil’s killing had led to the arrest of safari organiser Headman Sibanda.
There was outrage around the world when Cecil the lion was shot and killed by American dentist Walter James Palmer after being lured out of a national park in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association confirmed Cecil was killed on private land outside the park, and an investigation is ongoing into the legality of the hunt.
Zimbabwe named Seski three days after it demanded Palmer’s extradition in connection with Cecil’s death outside Hwange National Park in July.
Zimbabwe authorities are accusing him of killing a lion with a bow and arrow in a restricted area over the weekend. During April of this year, Dr. Seski was at his home in the Pittsburgh area treating the cancer patients that rely on him for their care through the medical practice that he has maintained since 1981.
It came after more than one million people signed a petition calling on the African country to act after much-loved Cecil was brutally killed by American dentist Walter Palmer.
“[Seski] conducted his hunt in good faith, and now he is being treated as if he is some criminal”, Sibanda said.
He has issued a statement expressing regret at the killing but said he had no idea the lion was protected and part of a study and that he thought the hunt was legal.
“The police have it all now and they are using it as evidence”, said Mr Rodrigues.
Palmer has not responded to requests for interviews. The landowner also questioned why he had not been arrested if hunting was unlawful on his property.
Seski seemed like a “perfect gentleman” to Stewart Dorrington, who operates Melorani Safaris and owns a game reserve in neighboring South Africa where Seski hunted in 2012. The latest accusations emerged during the inquiry, the authority said. “Every thing he did was completely authorized and aboveboard and a fantastic assist to our conservation efforts”.
Similarly, when Cecil’s coalition partner Jericho was reported dead last weekend, researchers disproved the report by publishing a screen-grab of his Global Positioning System co-ordinates.
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“The logic is that if you keep killing them, they will become endangered”, Menendez spokesman Steven Sandberg said, according to the Associated Press.
