Dentist who killed Cecil shot bear in area where hunting was banned
THIS is the American dentist accused of shooting dead Cecil the lion – posing with another one of his kills.
Walter Palmer smiled for the camera in 2006 after shooting the black bear with a bow and arrow in Wisconsin, outside an authorised hunting zone.
Prosecutors say he tried to hide the act by bribing guides with $20,000, but he was caught and admitted making false statements to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
This shocking image was among photos in the case against Palmer, showing him kneeling down behind the bear’s dead body with his bow and arrow propped up against it. Another shows him standing next to the bear which has been hung up by a noose. The case has strong echoes of what is said to have happened with Cecil in Zimbabwe. Palmer and his guides are accused of luring the lion away from Hwange National Park.
The dentist is said to have shot Cecil with an arrow and then spent 40 hours hunting him down until the group finished him off with a bullet. The lion – famous across Africa for his black mane and the subject of an Oxford University research project – was then beheaded.
Palmer’s dental practice in Minnesota has been under siege as Zimbabwean authorities want to extradite him. He has long been an accomplished bow hunter, killing big game around the world, including a polar bear, buffalo and deer. In September 2006, he had a permit to kill a bear in one county of Wisconsin but shot one 100kilometres away in an area he was not supposed to.
State attorney John Vaudreuil told ABC News Palmer and three guides ‘agreed they would lie about it … a fairly aggressive cover-up’.
But the guides eventually told the truth and Palmer admitted charges of making false statements. He was fined $2,938.