Pittsburgh doctor, trophy hunter defends lion hunt as legal

Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Management Authority said Monday that Seski was involved an allegedly illegal hunt in April, put on by a safari guide who was arrested for his role in it.

Louis Muller, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association, who was at the Harare meeting, said the country needed to tell the world that its lion population was “extremely healthy” and that hunting was important to the conservation effort.

In a statement, lawyer Greg Linsin says Seski wasn’t even in Zimbabwe in April, when the alleged illegal hunting incident took place.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean authorities have said they will seek the extradition of Minnesota dentist Walter James Palmer, alleging he lacked authorization to kill “Cecil“.

Muchinguri, a senior member of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, described Cecil, a rare black-maned lion well-known to tourists in the Hwange National Park, as an “iconic attraction”.

“People expressed, ‘Will I look like a dumb person if I admit to not knowing anything about Cecil?’ ” she said.

The head of Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Authority ‘Zimparks’ said: “Hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in areas outside of Hwange National Park has been suspended”.

Palmer went into hiding after the hunt came to light.

Care2 CEO Randy Paynter said at the launch of the poll: “It’s a tragedy that many of our planet’s most treasured species are also the most vulnerable to those who would take their lives for a trophy”. Often such hunts are in preserves, with animals raised for the goal and confined in relatively small areas until they are killed.

In a statement released Tuesday, Dr. Jan Seski’s attorney argued that the gynecologic oncologist and surgeon was indeed hunting big game in Zimbabwe in July, including a lion.

U.S. officials have declined to comment on Zimbabwe’s extradition request. Headman Sedana, the owner of the land where that hunt was conducted, has been charged by Zimbabwe with allowing hunting where it is prohibited. “Now we will all be too scared to offer lion, and there are plenty of lion in this part of Zimbabwe”.

Professor David Macdonald, director of Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) said: “Jericho is alive and well”.

Initially there were fears that Cecil’s cubs may be killed by Jericho, so that Jericho could insert his bloodline into the pride.

“Kudos on lion kill recently”.