I have decided that it is just about possible that Walter Palmer, the instantly infamous dentist and father of two from Minnesota who took pleasure in killing Zimbabwe’s most famous male lion, was stitched up by the guides who led him into shooting Cecil, the lion, outside of his protected area, a national park. The objective: to highlight the unacceptable nature of lion hunting when they are a vulnerable species rapidly heading towards extinction in the wild.
You may know that the guides lured this tiger from the National Park where he resided and was protected thereby placing him in a vulnerable position which gave the impression to the hunter that he could legally shoot him.
As it happens the news got out that he was lured away from the park with bait being dragged behind a vehicle and shot illegally and there is now a clamour for the perpetrators to be prosecuted and Palmer is being vilified.
This story is big news and there are calls across social media and on petition sites for greater restrictions on big-game hunting in Africa. There are 150 lion hunting operations in South Africa making good money some of which are involved in canned hunting. In canned hunting, lions are bred solely for the purpose of being killed by rich Western hunters. Five thousand lions are bred this way.
Perhaps conservationists realised that the only way to highlight the problem of excessive lion hunting in South Africa, and I presume across other countries on the continent of Africa, was to sacrifice Zimbabwe’s most famous lion in order to benefit the others in the future. That would account for the fact that Cecil, a very well-known lion with a big following was selected by the guides for Walter Palmer. Of all the available lions why Cecil? It is seems extraordinary.
If the guides are prosecuted and genuinely punished then this theory can thrown out but let’s wait and see. I doubt whether anyone will be prosecuted despite what the authorities are saying.
There is another aspect of this notorious example of big game hunting which is intriguing. Walter Palmer paid £35,000 for the privilege and the pleasure of killing this lion. I wonder whether other people believe, as I do, that this is a cheap price for the life of such a magnificent creature. If people are intent and insistent upon killing lions in S. Africa and it cannot be stopped then surely the price should be much higher; somewhere in the region of ten times that figure would be more applicable and it would certainly put the brakes on this obnoxious practice.
P.S. Cecil’s cubs are in danger of being killed by an incoming male lion: infanticide.
https://youtu.be/H4a2htZ2wIQ
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Actually after Palmer killed Cecil a year later these same hunt guys did it again! Cecil’s brother Jerico. They say he died of natural causes but the first story I read (an now can’t find) said he was wounded by a arrow. I hate Zimbabwe’s new president who lifted the killing of wildlife. Zimbabwe also happens to be the dirty rats that have sold at least 50 baby elephants in China for Zoos! Only 25,000 left of 200,000.
Thank you, Tamara. I did an article about Jericho as well.
Palmer has a track record for being a liar;
In 2009 “As the hunting season began, Palmer was on probation for lying to authorities over the exact location where he had killed a black bear in northern Wisconsin in 2006.”
He’s a wealthy man who enjoys killing animals and he’s killed lots. I wish him nothing but misery for the rest of his days.
He wasn’t set-up. No-one forced him to to travel to Africa to kill any animals and he hired the guides. He knew from the GPS collar Cecil was wearing that it would be illegal to hunt him and that’s why he tried unsuccessfully to remove and hide the collar after the kill.
It estimated that it took poor Cecil 40 hours to die, from the initial injury from the bow and arrow until they tracked him down and finished him off with a gun. Where’s the ‘sport’ in that!
Scum like Walter Palmer deserve everything that is coming to them …. and it will, courtesy of the public, if not the authorities.
Yes, I think you are right. I am trying to get a dialogue going to discuss this crime. There is a faint possibility there is some sort of set up because it is irrational to kill Zimbabwe’s most famous lion. There was bound to be a backlash and it has caused Palmer (correctly) massive problems. There were other lions to choose. I suppose the answer to that is that Palmer is irrational. Mad almost.
Palmer probably thought he could get away with shooting Africa’s most famous lion. I’m sure he relished the ‘challenge’ of taking on such a magnificent creature. Not to mention the bragging rights Cecil’s head on his wall, would have given him amongst his fellow hunters.
If he were genuinely remorseful for killing a protected lion, then he would have admitted to his ‘mistake’, instead of trying to hide the evidence of his crime.
I’m just glad that Cecil’s killer has been identified. Like Kristen Lindsey before him, he will find that there is no hiding place for a monster.
Michele, what is bugging me slightly is that this crime is no different fundamentally to the Kristen Lindsey crime yet there is an almost a complete lack of interest by domestic cat caretakers in the shooting of this lion compared to the keen interest shown in the killing of a domestic cat by Lindsey.
I agree, their crimes are the same – an illegal killing of an animal.
Why do you feel there’s a lack of interest from cat owners to Cecil’s killing, compared to Tiger’s?