MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. wildlife authorities announced an investigation Thursday into the killing of Cecil, a prized lion in Zimbabwe, and also revealed that they have been unable to contact Dr. Walter Palmer, the Minnesota big-game hunter and dentist who participated in the fatal hunt.
“The U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of Cecil the lion,” said Edward Grace, the agency’s deputy chief of law enforcement. “That investigation will take us wherever the facts lead.”
Grace also acknowledged that “at this point in time … multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful. We ask that Dr. Palmer or his representative contact us immediately.”
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reached Palmer by telephone Wednesday and requested an interview. He said, “I’m meeting with my team,” and declined to say more. Palmer did not answer his phone Thursday morning.
Until this announcement, the USFWS and the U.S. Justice Department had said just a day earlier that they would merely be assisting Zimbabwe authorities in their investigation into Cecil’s death. Palmer has not been charged in either country.
Palmer, 55, of Eden Prairie, shot and wounded the lion with a bow and arrow July 1. For a price of more than $50,000, Palmer was accompanied by a guide and another person, both of whom have been implicated in the kill by law enforcement in Zimbabwe. After tracking led them to Cecil about 40 hours later, the hunting party finished the lion off with a gunshot.
Earlier this week, Palmer issued a statement saying he did not know that the lion that was killed was a protected animal living on a reserve and was part of a research study. Palmer’s statement said he regretted killing Cecil and was only following what he thought were the legal directions of his guide.
The lion lived in Hwange National Park, where he had protected status and was collared as part of a long-term study. He became a favorite among tourists and a point of pride for the southern African nation.
Zimbabwe wildlife officials say the lion was killed after a nighttime pursuit during which the hunters tied a dead animal to their car as bait to lure it out of the national park.
The killing has unleashed a firestorm of outrage that has spanned the globe. Palmer has been forced to halt his dental practice as critics tied up his phone lines, filled his social media account and website with harsh postings and staged a passionate protest outside his Bloomington office. Police in Eden Prairie said they are keeping watch on Palmer’s neighborhood but not providing him personal protection.
Palmer, who has been hunting big game for many years, had been listed in a record book compiled by Safari Club International, which claims 55,000 members worldwide. The club’s record book listed 43 kills by Palmer, all by bow and arrow. His list includes moose, deer, buffalo, a polar bear and a mountain lion. The club said this week it was suspending the memberships of Palmer and his Zimbabwe-based guide.
Though he is known in hunting circles as a skilled bowman, Palmer has also run afoul of the law at least twice over the years, with a guilty plea and fine in 2008 for misleading federal authorities about a bear he killed illegally in Wisconsin and for fishing without a license in Minnesota’s Otter Tail County.
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