A dentist called from Minnesota, Walter James Palmer of Eden Prairie, Minnesota is a bit of lad, isn’t he? He went to Zimbabwe in order to shoot animals. But not just any old animal, oh no. He went to the Hwange National Park and shot Cecil, a 13-year-old prized lion, who was protected and the subject of a decade long study by the Wildlife Unit of Oxford University in the UK and was outfitted with a GPS collar.
Mr Palmer, who paid his guides $55,000, was so remorseful when the story was revealed: “I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt”, he said. “I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion.”
Can anyone spot a slight contradiction here? Mr Palmer didn’t know Cecil was part of a study, loves killing animals, responsibly of course, and regrets “taking” the animal. Oh, that’s all right then. It was all a big misunderstanding. If the lion had not been “a known local favourite” he’d have found another lion to kill instead, “responsibly and legally” of course.
A brief trawl through the internet shows that Mr Palmer has form. In 2008, he illegally killed a black bear in Wisconsin and was fined and put on probation. Presumably, that was someone else’s fault, probably the bear’s. What right has a black bear to wander freely when there’s a heavily armed dentist pursuing an activity he loves?
Given that Mr Palmer seems to have acknowledged that he has illegally killed a beautiful animal, although I struggle to understand how it can ever be legal, I have a suggestion for the court which will hopefully try him. By all means, bang him up for a few years – 20 would be about right, but I wouldn’t complain if it was a bit longer than that – but first of all, can we not resurrect Laurence Olivier’s Nazi war criminal dentist Dr Christian Szell from Marathon Man and allow him to carry out some anaesthetic-free work on Mr Palmer’s teeth? In fact, I’d willingly agree to carry it out myself. Only a few hours of root canal treatment, that’s all, after all I’m not normally a sadist but it would seem to be an appropriate treatment for a dentist to have.
