Zimbabwean Officials: American Man Wanted in Killing of Cecil the Lion

A wealthy Minnesota dentist – alleged to have paid $50,000 for baiting a beloved community lion in Zimbabwe to a nearby farm before shooting it with a bow and arrow and then tracking the wounded creature for 40 hours – is wanted by Zimbabwean authorities. US representatives are calling for an investigation, too. “Cecil, who was 13, was a prized lion in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, where visitors reportedly sighted him frequently,” reports Don Melvin for CNN. The lion with a distinctive black mane “was a participant in a study that Oxford University in Britain was conducting, and he had been outfitted with a GPS collar.” The lion population has declined from 200,000 in 1900 to 30,000 today. Dentist Walter James Palmer insists the hunt was legal. Wildlife experts are alarmed that hunters regard the rarest of animals as the most attractive targets. The tragic details of inequality, endangered species, cruelties of hunting and failures of conservation ignited fury on the internet with Palmer as the target. If sustained, the global outcry could transform to prosecutions, activism on conservation for Africa’s dwindling wildlife and rejection of big-game hunting as sport. – YaleGlobal