Meantime in the US, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service said it had opened a probe into the hunt.
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Investigators have identified the poacher to be Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota. Efforts to reach Palmer have been unsuccessful and officials asked him or his representative to contact the agency.
In a statement, Palmer has said he wasn’t aware that the lion was protected, and that he relied on local guides to ensure that he was acting legally.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of ‘Cecil the lion, ‘ ” Edward Grace, the deputy chief of law enforcement at the agency, said”. Because of the attention raised by Cecil’s death, many who have spent their lives trying to protect animals hope it will alert the larger public that, each year, American hunters kill many lions and other wild African animals purely for sport. Two local hunters have already appeared in court to face charges of poaching because they allegedly lured the lion out of the Hwange National Park, a game reserve.
Zimbabwean prosecutors have charged the hunter who supervised Palmer’s outing, Theo Bronkhorst, with killing a lion not authorized to be hunted.
WHILE the death of the protected lion has caused outrage in the United States – much of it centred on the Minnesota dentist who killed the animal – most in Zimbabwe expressed a degree of bafflement over the concern.
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Palmer said he paid professional guides for a private safari to stalk the 13-year-old lion and kill him.
But spokesman Josh Earnest said it was up to the US justice department to respond to any extradition order. “We got there about 9am, and we found it and it was wounded, and the client then shot it, with his bow and arrow, and killed it”.
Dr Palmer later asked “if we would find him an elephant [with one tusk] larger than 63 pounds, which is a very large elephant”, Mr Bronkhorst claimed.
“To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted”, Palmer said in a statement posted on the Star Tribune newspaper website.
This report includes materials from the Associated Press.
Still, the predator has become the prey: as authorities investigate the legitimacy of Palmer’s involvement in the hunt, he’s being crucified on social media worldwide.
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In 2008, Mr Palmer plead guilty to federal charges of making false statements in realtion to bear hunting activity in Wisconsin.
