Death of Zimbabwe’s Best-Loved Lion Ignites Debate on Sport Hunting

Cecil the lion death: US investigates Walter Palmer hunt

Walter Palmer's dental practice in Minnesota has been besieged by angry protesters
US officials have launched an investigation into the killing of a lion in Zimbabwe but say they have been unable to reach the American involved.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said it was "deeply concerned" about the "tragic" death of Cecil the lion.

Director Dan Ashe said they will "go where facts lead" but efforts to reach Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful.

Mr Palmer says he thought the hunt was legal but two Zimbabwean men have been arrested over the popular lion's death.

The dental practice he runs in Minneapolis has been closed since he was named as the tourist who shot Cecil, Zimbabwe's most famous lion.

Protesters gathered outside the building on Wednesday, carrying placards saying "Justice for Cecil", "Trophy hunters are cowards" and "Prosecute poachers".

On Thursday, the White House said it would review a public petition to extradite the American dentist after more than 100,000 signed it.

But spokesman Josh Earnest said it was up to the US justice department to respond to any extradition order.

Walter Palmer has faced a huge backlash online over his killing of Cecil the lion
A petition calling for the American dentist to be extradited has more than 100,000 signatures
Earlier, the FWS said: "We are currently gathering facts about the issue and will assist Zimbabwe officials in whatever manner requested."

"At this point in time, however, multiple efforts to contact Dr Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful," it said, saying Mr Palmer or his representative should contact them immediately.

"It is up to all of us - not just the people of Africa - to ensure that healthy, wild populations of animals continue to roam the savannah for generations to come," the statement said.

The whereabouts of Mr Palmer is currently unknown, but he is thought to have returned to the US after Cecil was killed on 1 July.

'Life-long hunter'
In a letter to his patients, the dentist said he would assist authorities in Zimbabwe or the US in their inquiries and apologised for the disruption to the clinic.

The American tourist is believed to have paid about $50,000 (£32,000) to go on the hunt in Zimbabwe.

Prosecutors in Zimbabwe have charged the hunter who supervised Mr Palmer's outing, Theo Bronkhorst, for killing a lion not authorised to be hunted. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

The country's safari organisation also said the way in which Cecil was lured out of a national park was unethical and possibly illegal.

A second suspect, farm owner Honest Ndlovu, was also arrested but is yet to be charged.

Lions in Africa
35,000

Max estimated lion population

12,000

Max lion population in southern Africa

• 665 Approx number of 'trophy' lions killed for export from Africa per year
  
  
• 49 Lion 'trophies' exported from Zimbabwe in 2013
  
  
• 0.29% Contribution to GDP of Zimbabwe from trophy hunting
  
  
• 17% Of Zimbabwe's land given to trophy hunting

Source: lionsalert.org, CITES, UICN
AFP
An international hunting organisation suspended the memberships of both Mr Palmer and Mr Bronkhorst on Thursday, saying it wanted a "full and thorough investigation" into the lion's death.

Safari Club International, which promotes big-game hunting worldwide, said "those who intentionally take wildlife illegally should be prosecuted and punished to the maximum extent allowed by law".

Cecil, who was a major tourist attraction at Zimbabwe's largest game reserve in Hwange National Park, was being monitored by UK-based Oxford University as part of a conservation programme.

The animal is believed to have died on 1 July, but the carcass was not discovered until a few days later. It had been skinned and beheaded.

Analysis: The view from Africa - BBC Monitoring
Cecil's killing has attracted little media attention inside Africa. What little comment there was came in the form of derisive editorials in Zimbabwean state media.

"Not since Simba, of The Lion King fame, has a lion captured the world's imagination in this way," Alex Magaisa wrote in the Zimbabwean Herald newspaper. While tragic, the lion's death has not inflamed local passions because it is "far removed from the lived realities of most of the local people," he added, saying that tourism and hunting in Zimbabwe are "mired in elitism".

The writer said neither he nor his family had heard of Cecil the lion before it was killed.

Kennedy Mavhumashava struck a similar note in the Zimbabwe Chronicle and invoked the history of Western colonialism: "Many believe the lion was named after Cecil John Rhodes, the celebrated forerunner of British colonialism in Southern Africa, explaining the saturation coverage on the demise of his namesake."

"If 'Anti' simply means Anti-hunting or Anti-hunter, Then I'm not one, but I don't enjoy hunting either."







If you don't enjoy hunting, may I ask just why did you join a hunting site? I do believe there is no question on what the site is dedicated to, those who have hunted or for those of us whom wish to hunt in Africa.


It would seem to me, if you still joined with knowing this you did so only to antagonize the other members here. Would you not feel more at home on a PETA site?

Vevew said:

That's because it is not the same lion. Here's what the lion looked like a month before it was killed.
Link: Cecil the lion's final photograph


I think only a small fraction of those who oppose trophy hunting are vegans. A 2008 poll in the U.S. found that only 3.2% of adults follow a vegetarian diet and 0.5% identifying as vegans (wiki). What does vegetarianism even have to do with this topic?

There are people who are fine with hunting for food, but oppose trophy hunting. Listen to these YouTube channel hosts talk about it:
LINK.

The distinction between hunting and trophy hunting is very important. Why don't the trophy hunters just donate the money and let someone else do the necessary population management? Because they want to be the one who pulls the trigger and kills the animal. And the hunter doesn't eat the lion or make clothes from it out of necessity; the end product is merely an ornament - a head hanging on a wall. This is the mindset that anti-trophy-hunters do not understand.

Sure, it's just a moral/emotional issue.

Click to expand...

Because if you eat meat and find hunting to be immoral or emotionally traumatizing then to put it nicely you are very ignorant and probabaly willfully so. In the not so distant past if you wanted to eat meat chances were you had to kill an animal (either domestic or wild), now that killing has been "outsourced". As I've said earlier what happens inside slaughterhouses would give people PTSD if the killing of a lion disgusts/disturbs them so much.

Now when you bring up "hunters" and "trophy hunters" there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The overwhelming majority of non trophy hunters enjoy hunting just like trophy hunters do. The biggest difference in most cases between the two is $$$. Now the area between the two can also easily get blurred. There are lots of people in say the US who hunt deer to eat and at the same time you will be hard pressed to find a deer hunter who doesn't have a trophy in their house. By trophy I mean either an antler mount, Euro/skull mount, or a taxidermy shoulder mount. They keep trophies just like a trophy hunter does.

Now with that being said I do know a guy who lives in the Yukon who doesn't give a sh@t about trophies and hunts just for the meat and enjoyment. Once he left a huge, well over 6 foot rack (big enough to put a hammock in) from a moose in the bush, and the only reason he took that moose was because it was his second last day in a really remote fly in area and he hadn't seen any other moose on that trip. He prefers spikers (young bulls) as they're better for eating. He only hunts for meat, doesn't have a single trophy hanging on his wall, but you'll be hard pressed to find a hunter (non trophy or trophy) who loves hunting more than he does.

You know I get some people don't understand our mentality and that's ok. I don't understand a lot of theirs either. If your going to object to something you should at least know what your talking about and not what your read on Face Book.

Hey guys share this with your facebook friends. This guy hits it on the head!

http://www.theblaze.com/contributio...er-to-care-about-dead-lions-than-dead-people/

That's exactly what I thought.

Soooo after all of this, has anyone determined if he actually had a permit or not? I heard the landowner was not charged... Is this accurate? Are any facts actually coming out or is everything still hearsay. Not trying to jump start a whole debate again just trying to see actual news about this.

Does it really matter now if he had a permit, and this may be a legal hunt? His business has been ruined, threats were made on him and his families lives. The court of public oppinion has spoken.

I honestly feel, facebook, twitter, and whatever other social network out there, that allows cowards to ensite violence against others need to be held accountable. We all have the freedom of speech, but when it causes harm to others, those who give that platform are just as guilty as those who spew the hate.

Everyone here knows hunters are the reason animals thrive, but allow some half baked celibertity to speak on a topic they have no clue on, then have them citied as a news source. Well, it speaks volumes to what we as. Nation have sunk to....

Sorry, I turn over the soap box to the next speaker. My rant against stupidity is over.

Mr Shannon, I could not agree more, well stated.

Thank you.

I detest that the liberal media intentionally, and as a diversion, give so much attention to an almost non story while ignoring important stories that do not conform to there political ideology.

This is a hunting site and as such, a congenial place to discuss all aspects of the sport. Why is one here if hunting is not their sport.

I realize many people do not hunt and I have debated the topic on occasion with non hunters but only those who do not eat meat; I ignore anti hunting meat eaters.

CNN)As outrage grows over the killing of Cecil the lion, Zimbabwe has called on the United States to extradite the American dentist who shot the prized big cat this month.

Zimbabwe has started extradition proceedings and hopes the U.S. will cooperate, said Oppah Muchinguri, the African nation's environment minister.

Walter Palmer "had a well-orchestrated agenda which would tarnish the image of Zimbabwe and further strain the relationship between Zimbabwe and the U.S.A.," Muchinguri said.

"This must be condemned in the strongest possible terms by all genuine, animal-loving conservationists who believe in sustainable utilization of natural resources."


American dentist says he regrets killing famed lion 03:47

Palmer allegedly paid $50,000 this month to hunt the lion with a crossbow near Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe.

It turned out to be Cecil -- a major tourist draw at Hwange -- who had been lured out of the park sanctuary with a dead animal on top of a vehicle, according to the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

The 13-year-old lion, recognizable by the black streaks in his mane, suffered a slow death, the conservation group said.

Amid the uproar over the hunt, Palmer's whereabouts remain unknown.

Cecil backlash: Where is Walter Palmer?

A White House petition requesting that Palmer, who killed the prized lion, be extradited to the African nation to face justice may receive a response from the Obama administration.

The petition needed to receive 100,000 signatures by August 27 to get a response. It had more than 160,000 signatures by early Friday.

Muchinguri said that there was also much outcry in Zimbabwe and that nearly 500,000 people had called via Facebook for Palmer's extradition.

"We are taking this issue seriously," he said, adding that Palmer should be tried in Zimbabwe for his alleged offenses.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also investigating the circumstances of the lion's death.

"That investigation will take us wherever the facts lead. At this point in time, however, multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful," said Edward Grace, the agency's deputy chief of law enforcement.

"We ask that Dr. Palmer or his representative contact us immediately."

Journalist Columbus Mavhunga in Harare and CNN's Jason Morris contributed to this report.

I just heard on the news that Cecil had his paws in the air and was shot in the back....

So, perhaps what everyone should do is pre-empt the fallout like this:

Before leaving on a hunt make a post on social media with your hunting pictures, say you have just returned from Africa where you hunted x,y and z animals.

Now, while you're off on your hunting holiday, the storm will brew, picketers will turn up outside your business, and by the time you've finished your holiday you'll find the whole thing will have blown over. All that remains is to sweep the placards off your porch...

My advice would be Dr Palmer do everything possible not to be sent back to Zimbabwe. If it was illegal, PH and land owner should be responsible, unless client knew it was illegal.

I'm sorry but why should the US cooperate with Zimbabwe, it's not like they cooperate with us. And I am confused, I keep reading how the people of Zimbabwe are outraged by the death of this lion. And then I read stories about how every person interviewed by foreign correspondents about this lions death don't even know what their talking about and don't care one way or the other. So which is it?

It kind of looks like they are going after the guy with the deepest pockets, kind of like the lawyers and insurance companies do over here.

B.Shannon said:

Does it really matter now if he had a permit, and this may be a legal hunt? His business has been ruined, threats were made on him and his families lives. The court of public oppinion has spoken.

Click to expand...

Mr. Shannon, by that point of view you are absolutely correct. It doesn't matter. And to that point all Lion Hunting it going to be under attack and hunters have been given a black eye whether it was legal or not. I just want to know facts before I give my opinion, it seems these days investigations and charges are based more on emotional outcry rather then if the law was actually broken.

Dispatch from Africa: trending social media topics (actual sh*t off my facebook feed and online ads targeting the African market):

- 10 Most Expensive cars in the world.
- Highest President Salaries: You wouldn't believe who's Number 1!
- Revolutionary new way to regrow missing hair
- Witch flies away from cops
- What the richest men in Dubai buy, you won't believe #5...

(the latter is the only lion-related thing I can see as there's a guy with a pet lion standing on his gold-plated SUV).

I guess the nouveau-riche technological class can't be bothered about the lion, and the rest of the population is too busy surviving to notice...