Months after the death of Cecil the lion sparked worldwide outrage, the Minnesota dentist is trying to resume his normal life. His office opened a few weeks ago while he kept things on the down low, but today Walter Palmer is returning to work. On Sunday, he finally broke his silence about the lion hunt when he spoke with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Associated Press in what he said will be his only interview.
He admitted he wounded and then killed Cecil with arrows, but said it took way less time than the 40 hours originally reported for Cecil to die. He wouldn’t address how much he paid for the hunt, or previous big game hunting trips. But Palmer insisted that the hunt was legal, and that he and his fellow hunters would have never killed Cecil had they known he was such a beloved lion in Zimbabwe.
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.
Besides being called every word in the book on Twitter, Palmer talked about how his wife and daughter have been affected by the controversy, even receiving threats on the Internet.
They’ve been threatened … in the social media, and again … I don’t understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all.
Palmer didn’t say whether he’d cooperate with the legal system in Zimbabwe or go back there to tell his side of the story. Authorities there want to extradite him, but that’s unlikely to actually happen. But for now, he’s just getting ready to start work again.
I have a lot of staff members at River Bluff Dental. I’m a little heartbroken at the disruption in their lives, and I’m a health professional. I need to get back to treating my patients.
