Protestors gather outside Dr. Walter James Palmer’s dental office in Bloomington, Minn.
A Minnesota dentist who killed a well-known, protected lion while on a hunt in Zimbabwe has advised his patients to seek care elsewhere since becoming a target of outrage from across the world.
Walter James Palmer remained secluded in the face of protests Wednesday at his suburban Minneapolis clinic and intense condemnation online. He has not appeared in public since being identified Tuesday as a party to the lion’s death but has said in a statement that he was unaware the lion was protected and that he relied on his guides to ensure a legal hunt.
Palmer, whose practice offers general and cosmetic dentistry, is an active big-game hunter, with many kills to his name, some of them registered with hunting clubs.
The North Dakota native “enjoys all outdoor activities,” according to the biography page on his now-dark clinic website. “Anything allowing him to stay active and observe and photograph wildlife is where you will find Dr. Palmer when he not in the office.”
In Zimbabwe, a hunting guide and a farm owner appeared in court Wednesday on allegations they helped Palmer kill the lion, named Cecil. And the head of Zimbabwe’s safari association said the big cat with the black mane was lured into the kill zone and denied “a chance of a fair chase.”
The Zimbabwean men were accused of aiding Palmer, who reportedly paid USD50,000 to track and kill a lion. Zimbabwe police have said they are looking for Palmer, whose exact whereabouts were unknown.
Palmer, 55, referenced the situation in a note to his patients. “I understand and respect that not everyone shares the same views on hunting,” he wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the local Fox television affiliate, KMSP.
Palmer added that the matter had disrupted his ability to see patients. The letter said the practice would “resume normal operations as soon as possible,” according to KMSP.
The married father of two was the subject of a 2009 New York Times article about big-game hunting in which he said he learned to shoot at age 5. The article said Palmer had a reputation for being capable of “skewering a playing card from 100 yards” with a compound bow and having “a purist’s reputation for his disinclination to carry firearms as backup.”
During the nighttime hunt, the Zimbabwean men tied a dead animal to their car to draw the lion out of a national park, said Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.
The American is believed to have shot the lion with a crossbow. The wounded cat was then tracked for 40 hours before Palmer fatally shot him with a gun, Rodrigues said.
A professional hunter named Theo Bronkhorst was accused of failing to “prevent an unlawful hunt.” Court documents said Bronkhorst was supervising while Palmer shot the animal. Brian Bakst and Farai Mutsaka, St. Paul, Minn., AP
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