Cecil the lion: Zimbabwe will not charge US dentist over killing

Zimbabwean environment minister says Walter Palmer’s big-game hunting trip was legal and he could not be charged

Reuters in Harare

Monday 12 October 2015 14.53 BSTLast modified on Monday 12 October 201517.33 BST

Zimbabwe will not charge American dentist Walter Palmer for killing a prized lion in July because he had obtained legal authority to conduct the hunt, a cabinet minister has said.

“We approached the police and then the prosecutor general, and it turned out that Palmer came to Zimbabwe because all the papers were in order,” the environment minister, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, told reporters, adding that the American could not be charged. 

Palmer, from Minnesota, has always maintained that he believes he acted legally. Last month he told the Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe’s treasured animals.

“If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn’t have taken it,” Palmer said. “Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion.”

Palmer, who has several big-game kills to his name, reportedly paid thousands of dollars for the guided hunt.

Muchinguri Kashiri said Palmer was free to visit Zimbabwe as a tourist but not as a hunter. The implication was he would not be issued the permits a hunter needs.

Two more people still face charges related to Cecil’s killing. Both allegedly were involved in using bait to lure Cecil out of his habitat in Hwange National Park so he could be killed.

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Cecil the lion killer, Walter Palmer, to return to work

The US dentist who sparked an international outcry after killing a lion in Zimbabwe has said he did nothing wrong and is planning to return to work this week.

Speaking in his first interview since the July killing of Cecil the lion, Walter Palmer said he had been unaware of the animal's significance.

He also revealed that there had been "some safety issues" for his family.

Zimbabwe has said it wishes to extradite and prosecute Mr Palmer.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the incident, he told the Associated Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune that he had acted legally, but said that if he had known who the animal was he would not have killed it.

"If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn't have taken it," Mr Palmer said. "Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion."

The Minnesota dentist admitted that he wounded the lion with an arrow but denied that it had subsequently taken 40 hours to track down and kill it. He also denied claims by the Zimbabwean authorities that it had been killed by a gun, saying that an arrow had been used.

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Cecil the lion: Zimbabwe man charged for role in animal's killing

Honest Ndlovu accused of allowing illegal hunt on his land near national park

No charges reported against US dentist Walter Palmer, who shot Cecil

Tuesday 18 August 2015 17.39 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 18 August 201519.17 BST

Zimbabwe has charged a man on whose land the well-known Cecil the lion was shot by American dentist Walter James Palmer in July.

Charges have not been filed against Palmer, according to prosecutors, while inMinnesota the dentist has reopened his practice.

Prosecutors on Tuesday accused Honest Ndlovu, whose property is near the vast Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe, of allowing an illegal hunt on his land.

Ndlovu allowed Palmer to hunt and kill Cecil with a bow and arrow without a quota for a lion hunt on his farm, which is separated from the park by a railway track, said prosecutors.

Ndlovu is free on $200 bail and the case has been postponed to 18 September. The charge carries a one year jail term or $400 fine, Ndlovu’s lawyer Tonderai Mukuku told the Associated Press by phone. Palmer was named in court as the hunting client but there was no mention of charges against him, said Mukuku.

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Sir Roger Moore on Cecil the lion: 'Hunting is a coward's pastime'

We should protect the most vulnerable and helpless in society, not destroy them – much less derive pleasure from doing so

By Sir Roger Moore

8:16PM BST 29 Jul 2015

Fact: hunting is a coward's pastime, and no one has demonstrated that more clearly than the American dentist Walter Palmer, who apparently paid over £30,000 to gun down a lion to add his head to a trophy wall. That wall includes the heads of animals he has shot at close range – with the help of paid facilitators, of course, from all over the world – including a leopard, an elk, a buffalo and even a polar bear, who won't have to wait for global warming to be killed off.

What happened bears repeating: the man, aided by several guides, did not stalk a wild beast who was a danger to anyone. The animal was lured out of his safety zone in a park and was blinded by a spotlight. Palmer then fired a high-powered weapon to injure the lion, who, with a steel arrow stuck through him, crept away and suffered for 40 long hours before the "hunter" arrived and the animal was skinned and decapitated.

It has been alleged that the guides also tried to hide the radio collar on Cecil's neck because it contained a tracking device. You'd be forgiven for thinking that behind the dentist's unnaturally white teeth is a person devoid of moral fibre, conscience or decency.

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Zimbabwean authorities hunt Spaniard accused of killing Cecil the lion

European allegedly paid €50,000 for chance to kill tourist attraction, who was found headless after being shot with a bow and arrow and tracked for 40 hours

Stephen Burgen in Barcelona

Sunday 26 July 2015 12.01 BSTLast modified on Monday 27 July 201500.30 BST

Authorities in Zimbabwe are trying track down a Spaniard who allegedly paid park guides €50,000 (£35,000) for the chance to kill Cecil, one of Africa’s most famous lions, who was the star attraction at the Hwange national park. The creature was found skinned and headless on the outskirts of the park.

The 13-year-old lion was wearing a GPS collar as part of a research project that Oxford University has been running since 1999, making it possible to trace its last movements when it was tricked into leaving the park and shot with a bow and arrow. The hunters then tracked the dying animal for 40 hours before they killed it with a rifle.

Bait, in the form of a freshly killed animal, was used to tempt Cecil out of the park, a technique commonly used so that hunters can “legally” kill protected lions.

“Cecil’s death is a tragedy, not only because he was a symbol of Zimbabwe but because now we have to give up for dead his six cubs, as a new male won’t allow them to live so as to encourage Cecil’s three females to mate,” said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force. “The two people who accompanied the hunter have been arrested but we haven’t yet tracked down the hunter, who is Spanish.”

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