Zimbabwean environment minister Oppah Muchinguri said Palmer was accused of financing an illegal hunt to kill Cecil. “The processes have already started”, Muchinguri said at a news conference Friday.
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“Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin”, Muchinguri said. “We want him (Palmer) to be extradited and tried in Zimbabwe”, she said.
Palmer, from Minnesota, has said he relied on the expertise of local guides “to ensure a legal hunt”. That’s not to suggest in any way that any harm should come to Palmer; only that it’s fitting that this big-time hunter might now know a little of what it is like to be on the other end of things.
Social media were filled with condemnation of the killing just outside Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Palmer has kept a low profile, but on Friday U.S. federal wildlife authorities said they have been contacted by a representative of the Minnesota dentist. The White House said on Thursday it would review a public petition with more than 100,000 signatures demanding Palmer’s extradition.
Cecil the lion pictured in 2012 before his brutal killing at the hands of an American dentist.
Richard Chibuwe, the deputy chief of mission at Zimbabwe’s embassy in Washington, said extradition would be a “last resort”.
The killing of Cecil the Lion in a remote stretch of Zimbabwe has prompted an worldwide reckoning over how countries protect endangered species and combat illegal hunting.
Palmer could have violated the U.S. Lacey Act, a law tied to a United Nations treaty for the protection of animals. When we all rush in to try to take the place of a system thats failed, were all acting according to our individual senses of whats fair and right, and we produce results that seem just as arbitrary. First, it has to apply to U.S. courts and satisfy them that Palmer committed an offence and that he would be jailed for more than a year if convicted.
Palmer, 55, is a dentist in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington.
For the third straight day, his Bloomington dental practice remained closed. Blowing up Palmers Yelp reviews and falsely attributing statements to him and his business that arent actually theirs?
Also because, he said, it’s not the first time a lion has been killed illegally around Hwange National Park in northwestern Zimbabwe, a reserve known for its rich wildlife.
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, the government authority on wildlife in Zimbabwe, said Sunday that Jericho is living and being monitored by Brent Stapelkamp of the Lion Research Project.
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The official says no rescue missions are planned.
