Zimbabwean operator says American hunter didn’t break law

Sithole is cooperating with the police investigation.

Seski’s office has not responded to calls for comment. It is also leading to death threats for other Dr. Palmers across the country, including in Louisiana.

Benjamin Stafford from the Forest Park Zoo in Springfield told 22News, “Without Cecil there to protect his pride, all of his young could be killed by other wild lions”.

“He conducted his hunt in good faith and now he is being treated as if he is some criminal”, Headman Sibanda said of 68-year-old Jan Seski in an interview with the Associated Press.

News of the killing of the 13-year-old lion was met with worldwide outcry and public protests outside the dental practice owned by Mr Palmer. Zimbabwean authorities called it an illegal hunt.

Online backlash regarding the death of Cecil has garnered such massive global support that the White House announced on Thursday that they would be reviewing a petition to extradite the dentist back to Zimbabwe to face charges.

A second American doctor is now being accused of illegally killing a lion in ZImbabwe. Palmer pleaded guilty in 2008 for lying about a black bear hunt in Wisconsin, for which he was fined and sentenced to a one-year probation.

A handful of Seski’s neighbors said he mostly keeps to himself and that he’d been buying up the land around his property. The Zimbabwe government is also reported to be longing for a hunk of Plamer’s hide, alleging he paid $50,000 to guides who lured Cecil the Lion out of a game preserve so Palmer could blaze away at him. “I’ve never seen him done anything illegal or unsportsmanlike at all”.

Dorrington said he had converted his cattle ranch into a game reserve in the 1980s, and that funds from the trophy hunting of antelope were essential to conserving the wildlife population. “Everything was done above board”.

Also Sunday, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force clarified a report from Saturday in which they claimed Cecil’s ally, a lion named Jericho, had been shot and killed.

As welcome as the news is that Zimbabwe has suspended all wildlife hunting in light of at least two questionable recent lion kills by Americans, it’s going to take a much more aggressive approach to prevent future slaughters. Several senators have introduced the Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act, which would expand the ban on importing on exporting endangered animals to include animals who are proposed to be listed as endangered or threatened.