An American Dentist paid $55,000 to kill Zimbabwe’s famous Lion

 Cecil the lion, a famous black-maned resident of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, died at the hands of an American dentist, conservationists report.

They say Walter Palmer paid $55,000 to hunt and kill Cecil with a bow and arrow. The incident occurred around July 6, with a professional hunting outfit reportedly luring Cecil outside the boundaries of the protected reserve using a dead animal as bait.

“Mr. Palmer shot Cecil with a bow and arrow but this shot didn't kill him,” Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said in a statement. “They tracked him down and found him 40 hours later when they shot him with a gun. Cecil, who was known all over the world would have earned millions of dollars just from sightseeing. Walter Palmer apparently paid $55,000 for the kill."

It wasn’t the first kill for Palmer, who has multiple photos posted on the website Trophy Hunt America showing the Minnesota resident posing with dead lions, rhinos, water buffalo, warthogs, and other animals.

“As far as I understand, Walter believes that he might have shot that lion that has been referred to as Cecil,” the spokesperson said. “What he’ll tell you is that he had the proper legal permits and he had hired several professional guides, so he’s not denying that he may be the person who shot this lion. He is a big-game hunter; he hunts the world over.”

Theo Bronkhorst, the professional hunter who led Palmer to Cecil, has reportedly been suspended indefinitely from the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association for the way the hunt was carried out.

“ZPHGA reiterates it will not tolerate any illegal hunting or any unethical practices by any of its members and their staff,” the organization said in a statement. “We will await the completion of the current investigation by Zimbabwe Parks Wildlife Management Authority before commenting any further.”

Park rangers and regular visitors knew the 13-year-old lion as a tourist attraction, easily approached by safari guide jeeps for photo opportunities. Cecil had a propensity for lounging in the middle of roads, said Bryan Orford, a former park guide and a longtime visitor to Hwange. Hunting such an easy target only made the killing of Cecil even more wrong, he said.

“I used to drive down the railway line road following Cecil and had to wait for him to get off the road,” Orford said last week. “This walking in front of the vehicle would go on for ages. Other times he would lie in the road, and you had to drive off the road to go around him.”

The death of Cecil not only means one less endangered African lion in the world but also could mean the demise of a whole line of cubs sired by the leader of the Hwange pride.

“The saddest part of all is that now that Cecil is dead, the next lion in the hierarchy  Jericho will most likely kill all Cecil's cubs so that he can insert his own bloodline into the females,” Rodriques said. “This is standard procedure for lions