ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota dentist who has become the target of worldwide outrage for hunting and killing a protected lion in Zimbabwe advised patients Wednesday to seek care elsewhere and said he rarely discussed his big-game hunting because it can be a “divisive and emotionally charged topic.”
Walter James Palmer was still secluded in the face of protests 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.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, a hunting guide and a farm owner appeared in court 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 unethically lured into the kill zone and denied “a chance of a fair chase.”
The Zimbabwean men were accused of aiding Palmer, who reportedly paid $50,000 to track and kill a lion. Zimbabwe police have said they are looking for Palmer, whose exact whereabouts were unknown.
Palmer, 55, told patients about the situation in a note and said they would be referred to other dentists for now.
“I don’t often talk about hunting with my patients because it can be a divisive and emotionally charged topic,” he wrote in the letter obtained by the local Fox television affiliate. “I understand and respect that not everyone shares the same views on hunting.”
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 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.
“I don’t have a golf game,” Palmer told the paper.
The article also said Palmer has 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 night-time 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 it with a crossbow. The wounded cat was then tracked for 40 hours before Palmer fatally shot it 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 Pal mer shot the animal.
Bronkhorst was released on $1,000 bail after appearing at the Hwange magistrate’s court, about 435 miles west of the capital Harare, according to his defense lawyer, Givemore Muvhiringi. If convicted, Bronkhorst faces up to 15 years in prison.
A second man, farm owner Honest Trymore Ndlovu, also appeared in court but was not charged and was released from custody, his lawyer, Tonderai Makuku, said.
The court documents made no mention of Palmer as a suspect.
Using bait to lure the lion is deemed unethical by the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, of which Bronkhorst is a member. The association has since revoked his license.
