Zimbabwe’s Cecil the Lion Killed by American Dentist

Walter James Palmer, an American dentist from Minnesota, has been named as the individual who killed a famous Zimbabwean lion named Cecil. The lion was a denizen of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, where he wore a GPS collar as part of a study that Britain’s Oxford University was conducting.

According to reports, two Zimbabweans, Honest Grymore Ndlovu and Theo Bronchorst, were paid to be Palmer’s guides and a hunting license was obtained. Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said that on July 6th, Cecil was lured out of the national park by the scent of a dead animal the hunters had tied to their vehicle. Palmer then shot Cecil with an arrow that failed to kill him. The men found Cecil suffering from the wound about 40 hours later, according to Rodrigues, and killed the lion with a gun. At that point, they discovered the GPS collar and tried to destroy it and took further steps to conceal the deed. (The gory details are here on CNN.

We couldn’t find an article about in The Zimbabwe Independent but we did find an article on South Africa’s IOL News site that sparked a lot of angry commentary: Killing famous lion was a mistake. Many celebrities have expressed outrage on Twitter.

LionAid.com has put together a report on the real statistics of similar incidents and the slim likelihood of Palmer facing any charges.