Cecil's killer: US authorities release new images
An illegally killed black bear hangs dead from a rope, beside him stands US dentist and Cecil's killer Walter Palmer.
In 2006, the depraved Walter Palmer from Minnesota grins into the camera in a forest in the northern part of the US state of Wisconsin.
Next to him lies a dead black bear. In further images, the beautiful animal hangs from a rope. Then only the bear's hide remains.
The documents come from a court file. The criminal recreational hunter Palmer had shot his quarry more than 60 kilometres from the area for which he held a hunting licence. He attempted to bribe his three hunting guides with 20’000 dollars to lie about the true location of the fatal shots.
According to these documents, the recreational hunter was caught when he tried to transport the dead animal across state lines into Minnesota. His accomplices did not keep quiet; Palmer paid a fine of 2,938 dollars. It was not his first hunting offence: as early as 2003, Palmer had been caught fishing without a licence, according to Blick.
Since the world learned last month how perniciously Palmer killed the famous lion Cecil in Zimbabwe, he has gone into hiding. The dentist and his hunting guide had tied parts of a dead elephant to their jeep, luring Cecil out of Hwange National Park. Palmer then wounded the animal with a bow shot and finally killed it with a rifle after a 40-hour chase.
Investigations are now underway against Palmer, who lives in Minnesota, both in Zimbabwe and in the United States. The avid trophy hunter has stalked game around the world and has elk, deer, buffalo, cougars, rhinoceroses, leopards, and even a polar bear on his conscience.
ABC News video report: Cecil’s final hours
Related dossiers and articles:
- Dossier: Trophy hunting
- Dossier: Recreational hunting tourism
- Dossier: Hunting myths
- Airlines refuse to transport trophies
- Swiss couple on trophy hunt in Africa
- All articles: Crime & hunting
- Template text: Cantonal commitment to an import ban on hunting trophies
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
