Dentist Who Killed Cecil the Lion Returns to Work

The American dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion sparked an international outrage – and a rambling social media defense from Detroit rocker Ted Nugent – has broken his silence and returned to work.

Dr. Walter Palmer’s Bloomington dental practice was surrounded by protesters and a modest police presence as he returned Tuesday, his first day on the job in the weeks since news of the beloved Zimbabwe lion’s killing sparked an international outrage, The Washington Post said.

On Sunday, the 55-year-old Palmer told the the Associated Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune in a joint interview that he has been astonished by the vitriol following the killing of Cecil, a lion living under the protection of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park.

“It’s been especially hard on my wife and daughter,” Palmer said in the interview. His pro bono attorney, Joe Friedberg, was at his side.

“They’ve been threatened. In the media, as well, and the social media. …” Palmer said. “I don’t understand that level of humanity, to come after people not involved at all.”

He faced more of that contempt Tuesday when he returned to the River Bluff Dental. Protesters shouted “Murderer!” as he walked silently into his office. Some demanded that he leave town. His office windows were reportedly plastered with posters reading “Justice for Cecil” and other messages

Palmer isn’t without supporters.

“I’m a health professional,” he said Sunday. “I need to get back to treating my patients. My staff and my patients support me, and they want me back. That’s why I’m back.”

He said he is “a little heartbroken at the disruption” to the lives of his office staff and patients.

Palmer said he hasn’t been in “hiding” as some media accounts have characterized his absence, though.

“Well, I’ve been out of the public eye,” Palmer said. “That doesn’t mean I’ve been hiding. I’ve been among people, family and friends. The location isn’t really important. … But I haven’t been in hiding.”

Palmer gave few new details of the hunt, for the most part repeating what he has previously said – that he believed the appropriate permits had been obtained. He also denied Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force reports that Palmer and his team had hunted the wounded Cecil for 40 hours before Palmer shot and killed him with a gun.

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“The lion was not taken with a gun,” he said. “It was not 40 hours later. It was followed up the next day and taken with a bow and arrow.”

He reiterated earlier assertions that the lion was shot outside of park boundaries, and that he did not know Cecil had been part of an Oxford University field study since 1999. The lion was reportedly habituated and known among Hwange National Park visitors for his friendliness.

Palmer said he did not see a collar around the neck of the black-maned lion, and his attorney, Friedberg, said there’s nothing illegal about shooting collared lions in Zimbabwe. Many of the lions in the national park are collared, they said.

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Repeating a statement he made in July, Palmer said Sunday: “If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study, obviously I wouldn’t have taken it. Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion.”

Palmer, a big-game hunter who says he has been on four previous safaris in Africa, said he’s unsure if he will return to Zimbabwe.

Some officials there have said they would like to see Palmer extradited to face possible charges for violating the country’s national hunting laws, but Friedberg questioned their authority to do that.

“I don’t believe that officials that have the power to do that have said that,” he told the AP and Star Tribune.

Friedberg said he and Palmer have reviewed Zimbabwe’s hunting laws and don’t expect him to face charges. “ … We have no reason at this point to believe that’s going to happen,” Friedberg said.