Zimbabwe officials are seeking to arrest Cecil the lion killing dentist, Walter Palmer, after the Minnesotan lured and then poached the nation’s beloved big cat from its African sanctuary earlier in July.
This is the second known felony assault and trespass against protected wildlife that Dr. Palmer has perpetrated: In 2008 he pleaded guilty to luring and killing a black bear, then planting its carcass elsewhere in order to feign it was a legitimate kill.
That murdered animal wasn’t wearing a GPS tracking collar, however, which is not the case with Cecil the lion, who was part of a research study and whose family is in great danger now without his presence in the pride.
Palmer, 55, has professed to not “knowing” that targeting the iconic creature with freshly-slaughtered bait so it would leave its heavily-protected territory and, therefore, be easier to kill, was wrong.
But this excuse neither matters nor rings true -- in law or in fact -- so hopefully the deviant dentist will finally do jail time for a pattern of animal abuse and cruelty.
“I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared, and part of a study until the end of the hunt," the big-game trophy hunter fibbed this week. “I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.”
Zimbabwe authorities announced today that they’ve arrested and arraigned Palmer’s “local professional guides” though, both of whom undoubtedly knew as well as their wealthy client that it was illegal to take Cecil’s life.
Zimbabwean conservationists accuse Dr. Walter Palmer of paying the jailed men approximately $50,000 for the illegal safari kill -- indifferent to the fact that the world’s lion populations are growing thinner and thinner with every passing decade.
“It’s a tragedy that we are taking something that belongs to future generations and shooting these animals just because somebody is on an ego trip and they can afford it,” an outraged spokesman for Zimbabwe’s national Conservation Task Force told NPR. “How do you bait an animal out of its habitat to kill it and consider it legal?”
It’s not clear where noble Cecil’s cowardly crossbow-killer himself is at the moment, but, now that his criminal cohorts are facing prosecution, it’s assumed he too will soon be in cuffs.
#AnimalCruelty #poaching
