Who shot Cecil? First it was thought that a mystery Spaniard had the blood of one of Africa’s most famous lions on his hands. Then came a fresh twist. The Cecil slayer, Zimbabwean conservations said on Tuesday, was in fact a dentist from Minnesota.
American Walter Palmer was said to be “quite upset” as the hunter became hunted. Zimbabwean police warned that he faced poaching charges, while there was a furious backlash on social media, with Facebook users variously calling for him to be publicly shamed, have his teeth pulled out without anaesthetic or be hunted and killed.
Cecil the lion, known for his black mane, was about 13 years old and a famous attraction for wildlife tourists in Zimbabwe until, earlier this month, he was tempted outside a national park using bait and shot with a bow and arrow. He is believed to have taken 40 hours to die.
In a statement to the Guardian, Palmer confirmed he had been in Zimbabwe in early July on a bow hunting trip. “I hired several professionals and they secured all proper permits,” said Palmer. “To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted.
“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 relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.”
Palmer, who is from Eden Prairie, just outside of Minneapolis, said he had not been contacted by authorities — either in Zimbabwe or the US — about the situation, but was willing to answer any questions they might have for him. “I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity that I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion,” he said.
Quite a bit to unpack there in that statement, starting with the “I thought I followed the law!” Jails are full of people who thought they were just following the law. The there’s the “known, local favorite” bit- because it is just perfectly acceptable to travel across the world and slaughter unknown or unpopular animals for shits and giggles. Who gets to decide that popularity contest, btw? “No, man. Leave Cecil alone, he’s chill. But you see that rhino over there named Bert? Yeah. Fuck him. No one likes him.”
Then there is the “taking of this lion” euphemistic bullshit. Where did you take Cecil? For a fucking walk? For ice cream? No, you human stain, you didn’t take him anywhere. You lured him into a trap, shot him with a bow and arrow, and then let the majestic beast suffer before 40 hours before someone shot him to death. Then you skinned him and took his head for a trophy.
Fuck you. I hope your business goes under and you die in a hunting accident.
Hal
He liked killing all sorts of animals as evidenced by this telegraph story. Lions, rhinos, elephants, leopards. A brave man to put his life on the line against those vicious animals with only high powered rifles, and bows and arrows to protect him.
Complete piece of shit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11767119/Cecil-the-lions-killer-revealed-as-American-dentist.html
Botsplainer
I’m hoping that the moment that Zimbabwe wants him extradited, that the Obama Administration sends him regardless of whether there’s a treaty or not.
Just quietly send the Marshals to his front door, cuff him and throw his ass on a plane for a long ass ride while he ponders what happens to a well-off American dentist in a Zim jail for having killed a national treasure.
ETA: The Zim government could do itself some financial good by putting his prison time on as reality TV with a pay per view option. I’d watch.
Major Major Major Major
gofundme in 3… 2…
Major Major Major Major
And for fuck’s sake I wish we could stop treating Africa as a playground for white people. But I’m not holding my breath.
slag
Oh no! He faces poaching charges? Why don’t they just put an arrow in him? You know, for fun! That’s how we do things in a civilized society, isn’t it?
Botsplainer
@Major Major Major Major:
Let the fuckers from SCI try and restore this asshole’s dental practice. I used to be a member when I was a wingnut, until I realized what total assholes they were, even as a wingnut.
Betty Cracker
I was watching a documentary on Teddy Roosevelt the other day, and he was another Big Game Hunter dickhead who liked to pose with gorgeous animals that he had converted into dead things. As abhorrent as that was and is, it was a different time, and it’s even less excusable now that so many animals have been driven to the brink of extinction.
Hunting for food, I can understand. Killing a beautiful and majestic animal just to get your macho rocks off is incomprehensible to me. I’d sure as hell never let a sadist like that anywhere near my teeth! I hope his practice is toast too.
Admiral_Komack
Extradite the bastard.
OT
IF Tom Brady would have tucked the phone away, he wouldn’t be in so much trouble.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Looking for a living definition of entitled sociopath? Here you go, America. Hope you’re proud of what you’ve spawned.
Second the motion for a Zimbabwe extradition, although he’ll just bribe his way out of that, same way he bribed the locals to help him get the cat he picked out. And he knew damn well that animal was known.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I could only ever bring myself to hunt birds. I have no love for dinosaurs.
MomSense
How can anyone look at a magnificent creature like Cecil and want to kill him? I don’t understand this kind of depraved behavior.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t get trophy hunting, and I used to hunt (plus, cute things with a face are soooooooooooo tasty). I don’t see trophy hunting as sport, I see it as mental illness.
If it is about “getting out there” into the wild, carry a goddamned camera. Same exercise, skillset and cost, and the animals get to live.
Major Major Major Major
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
-arrested development
Tinare
What an asshole. He deserves any and all bad things that happen to him in the future. These are the times I hope Karma is a real force in the universe.
GxB
@Major Major Major Major: That and/or “Stand with Walt” counter-protest. He’ll have countless Bachmann voters crossing town.
Marc
Tell us what you really think John!
catclub
At least nothing like this disgrace will happen to the CIA employees and contractors (see previous thread!) who tortured and killed people.
Nothing like this level of outrage over Darren Wilson.
Mike in NC
Did this asshole plan on mounting the lion’s head in his waiting room with other trophies? I was invited to go hunting a number of times but never saw the point of killing animals.
Doctor Palmer will release a statement noting that he’s sorry if he offended anybody by being a blood-gargling scumbag.
Lavocat
Dude, you’ve got to write a book. EVERYTHING you write makes me belly laugh.
The best line:
“Where did you take Cecil? For a fucking walk? For ice cream? No, you human stain, you didn’t take him anywhere.”
Knight of Nothing
Cole – looks like you already got your wish: a local news reporter just tweeted that his practice is closed, at least for now.
trollhattan
Two kids, eh? They must be so proud.
Never realized “The Freshman” was a documentary,
I have never liked these people but when they cheat to boot, and don’t give a shit other than being caught cheating, they deserve a Special Fate.
kindness
I don’t get the thrill of trophy hunts. Thank the FSM stuff is already cut up nice and neat in the grocery store.
Mike J
Why waste the money extraditing him? Surely the local zoo has a lion enclosure into which he could be placed.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: Good point about the camera. Not only do you have to use the same skills to get close to the critters that hunters use, the cameras, lenses, etc., could conceivably be fondled with the same passion ammosexuals lavish on their penis extension devices.
On Palmer’s practice website, he noted that he was super into “photographing” wildlife. He wasn’t about to admit that he was off killing all kinds of animals to prospective patients — that would be bad for business. Well, now they know. Now the whole fucking world knows.
jnfr
We have a very solid extradition treaty with Zimbabwe. It’s also possible he broke US law by paying his guides to bait the animal out of it’s protected park.
I can’t believe how furious this made me today. I think all my anger and angst over things like global warming and the state of our politics just flooded into this terrible sad story about this horrible man.
BettyPageisaBlonde
If #AllLivesMatter means anything, then this: #AllLivesFuckingMatter. Or shut the fuck up with that stupid hashtag.
This is one of those stories that pierces my little cynical, cowardly bubble (i don’t want to know the horrors!) and breaks my heart a little bit more. We’re really quite terrible to this amazing world and I don’t know how to make it stop.
:(
FlipYrWhig
Can the Zimbabwean government punish Palmer and have Dylann Root watch? “Yeah, punk, this isn’t Rhodesia anymore.”
Wallis Lane
This guy’s just a latter-day Orin Scrivello DDS:
“I am your dentist! And I enjoy the career that I picked. I’m your dentist! And I get off on the pain I inflict!”
Botsplainer
@jnfr:
I was looking at the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – it could stretch, but I’d still rather see him in a Zim jail.
dogwood
Trophy hunting is a macho endeavor for the very wealthy. It’s also a sick business in the countries that facilitate it. Like most everything else, it’s all about money.
dedc79
Lion populations have dropped from around 200,000 to 30,000 in the past century. Putting all the other reasons why this was despicable aside, I don’t understand the mentality of a person who would pay to push a species to the brink of extinction. I saw a Teddy Roosevelt reference or two up-thread. I’m convinced that the selfishness of this act would’ve horrified him as well, were he around today.
Knight of Nothing
Also: The Most Hated Dentist in
Americathe WorldFIFY
Mandalay
@Botsplainer:
From SCI’s about page, their two missions are
That’s like the KKK saying their two missions are promoting equality for blacks in our society and lynching.
Betty Cracker
@efgoldman: True, there are few things more contemptible than a “canned” hunt, but I doubt TR was in any danger either — he had something like 300 porters just to carry his luggage! Still, different time, I know: I don’t put TR in the same class with the psycho dentist. But I still can’t understand why anyone, anywhere during any time period would think it was fun to kill animals for sport. I just don’t get that.
StringOnAStick
Look at the photos: he’s a bow hunter, so he’s got a manly extension issue combined with a need to be extra primitive, like it gave Cecil a better chance or some such crap (this is the bushwa you hear from bow hunters, believe me). That’s why it took 40 hours for the poor thing to die, and only then because a gun was involved.
Word, People: Dentists as a group skew conservative, though there are a few who are at least Democrats. That guy/gal you like so much to fix your teeth may be using the profits to support your local rethuglicans/tea party types, so if that matters to you, try the sly hint/question game. I worked at one dental office where the DDS would openly dis liberal patients to his staff, while also lecturing us on how we’d better vote, or else. After years of working as a temp in the dental field, I can count the number of non-republican DDS’s on one hand out of the 50 or so offices I’ve worked at.
FridayNext
@efgoldman:
If I understand the story correctly, this is a lion somewhat acclimated to humans as well. So there’s that, too.
RSA
I don’t think it would be hard to bait a Minnesota dentist out into the open, and then…
Botsplainer
When some of the officials talk about the real cost of this, they’re not fudging the numbers. Mrs. Botsplainer is a top end luxury adventure travel agent, and African photo safaris (including parks and preserves in RSA, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique) are definitely within her wheelhouse. She’s got personal relationships with vendors throughout Africa. There is a heavy reliance on volume – there’s some low end stuff that can run about 8000 for a week to 10 days, but the good stuff runs more toward 15-20K per head for the same period of time. When you go on the preserve, they drive you in specially equipped open vehicles, 4-6 passengers, minded by a driver and an armed tracker (armed for protection – there are dangers, and explicit instructions about remaining in the vehicle and not standing up); they like seeing those vehicles full. Furthermore, part of the deal is that the animals are accustomed to the vehicles as part of the terrain – as long as nobody changes the profile by standing or moving funny, the animals are happy to be about and you can photo to your heart’s content. Cecil would have been incredibly habituated to that – this fucker took advantage of his conditioning.
When those adventure travelers come, the draw IS the Big 5 – and on a trip like that, a lion like Cecil (and his progeny, which would have had his character traits for approachability) would be a star. Anything which diminishes the photo trips costs multiples beyond the 50K this asshole paid.
bystander
I accidentally saw the photo this moron had taken of himself with the dead lion. It was very disturbing and I’d give anything to unsee it.
It is also hard to stop this revenge fantasy that keeps running thru my mind…
boatboy_srq
Even after multiple comment threads filled with disgust at the Dentist of Death, Cole still wins.
Botsplainer
@RSA:
Drag a hundred dollar bill through his front yard.
Botsplainer
@bystander:
My revenge fantasy would involve a fire and his trophy collection, just as he was being driven off for his extradition to Zim.
JPL
The good dentist needs to understand that there are consequences to ones actions. I don’t think a $3000.00 fine is going to be appropriate though.
Betty Cracker
@efgoldman: The documentary I saw — a Ken Burns thing covering both TR and FDR — was pretty fascinating. TR was a complex character. I didn’t know he died in his sleep at age 60! He looks older in the photos of him toward the end of his life.
PurpleGirl
As I read about this story and the excreable human behind it, I thought about William Holden and Stephanie Powers. Holden was very involved with conservative efforts in Kenya and helped found a park or two there. He went on safaris… but with cameras Through her relationship with Holden, Powers also became involved in conservation efforts and continues to work with groups to this day.
Germy Shoemangler
Does anyone remember the little shit that posed with a dead giraffe for his high school yearbook?
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/dead-giraffe-photo-ny-high-school-yearbook-sparks-outrage-article-1.2240266
Meanwhile, the beautiful young man who posed for his yearbook with his pet cat took his own life.
Linnaeus
I was once on a video conference with my boss who was making a sales pitch to a potential client when at one point, during a pause in the conversation, the potential client showed us some photos of a hunting trip he’d taken (somewhere in Alaska, I believe). One of the photos was of him posing with a very large brown bear that he’d shot and killed. He wasn’t exactly boasting about it, but was more like “oh, check this out.” My boss said something perfunctory like “wow, that’s a big bear” and I said nothing. I thought to myself, “he didn’t have to kill that bear” and spent the rest of the call hoping we wouldn’t have this guy and his business as a client.
JPL
@efgoldman: From weather.com
In the dead of summer, a time when attention-getting storms are typically tropical and the atmosphere is otherwise stagnant and steamy, a cyclone straight out of the spring and fall playbook is winding up along the U.S.-Canada border. It’s already whipped up a wild combination of snow showers and tornadoes within the same state on the same day, and it’s not done putting on its rare mid-summer show.
here’s a link.. the weather is forever changing…
http://www.weather.com/storms/severe/news/montana-wyoming-dakotas-canada-cyclone-snow-tornado-wind
different-church-lady
Great minds think alike. And so do ours.
Roger Moore
@Botsplainer:
That’s what Jim Corbett eventually decided to do, except he made an exception for tigers and leopards that ate humans. His books are definitely worth reading.
Germy Shoemangler
I remember switching around some obscure TV channels and seeing a lady who hosted a hunting show. They were stalking a bear. What stuck in my mind is after they killed it, she posed with it and very quickly laughed in its face. It was sort of “ha ha, we got you!”
If you’re going to kill an animal, please eat it, and please give thanks for its life.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Mandalay:
Or the old “fucking for virginity” thing. I hope that this douchbag loses his dental practice, his livelihood, his home and all of his belongings. I hope he never has another 50K with which to pay to kill innocent animals. If I believed in it I also hope he rots in hell. This just sickened me reading it today, truly sickened me.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Honestly, between the hunting obsession, the imperialism, and the opinions on the manly virtues of war, Teddy Roosevelt kind of seems like your basic alpha male jock dickbag to me.
I still give him full props for actually putting his money where his mouth is and signing up for the whole war thing (something most of our neocons would never dream of), and am thankful for the Progressive policies starting to move us out of the Gilded Age. But still.
EconWatcher
Went hunting with my grandfather when I was 11 and shot a raccoon. Still feel guilty about it, almost four decades later.
On the other hand, I cheerfully eat all kinds of meat, from terrified animals killed no doubt by some poor, underpaid, overworked soul who can’t afford my scruples. Not sure if anyone other than a vegan can really critcize hunting in general without hypocrisy. I don’t see meat-eating as making killing more moral; we can do without meat.
However, killing a member of an endangered species is obviously a different matter.
mai naem mobile
The Star Trib had a decent article. Apparently SCI had a list of animals he.s killed including a polar bear, a mountain lion ,a big horn sheep and another lion in addition to Cecil. I don’t understand hunting beyond I am lost and desperate for food and I have to hunt for food. Oh,yeah, he also had to settle a sexual harassment suit in 08 from a former employee who was also a patient. Also, he was put on probation in 06 for lying to the Feds about the location he killed a black bear. He’s an ugly ugly person.
Major Major Major Major
@Germy Shoemangler: Ugh, thanks for the reminder about the laser cat kid.
This is why all my donation money goes to The Trevor Project.
Mandalay
@EconWatcher:
– Hunting for food is OK.
– Hunting for fun is not OK.
Make sense?
boatboy_srq
@Mandalay: Not exactly. Hunters are surprisingly eco-friendly: after all, their “hobby” requires living space and otherwise healthy conditions for their prey. Ducks Unlimited works on the same principles, and they’re not bad at it. It goes back to the fact that prohibition is far more costly and less successful than management. Added plus for hunters’ orgs is that things like clean air/water/soil are things they can be fairly easily persuaded to care about. We may not like what they do, but they need the same things conservationists and environmentalists want. If we pay for that in an agreed number of deer/ducks/elk/fish killed every season, so long as that number doesn’t substantially affect species survival, it’s a better result than pushing hunters to join the anti-gummint ammosexuals who just want to shoot every
onething they see and to He11 with the consequences.EconWatcher
@mai naem mobile:
There’s a great short story from the 1920s about a White Russian Cossack who fled the revolution, settled on a tropical island, and uses castaways as human game. Just made me think of it.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore:One of India’s oldest national parks is named after him.
cmorenc
Deer are beautiful animals, but common in many areas of the eastern US to the point of often being hazardous to motorists – and they’re big enough to be potentially very dangerous if you collide with one at typical highway speeds. And so, I’m not against having seasons where they can be hunted in what passes for sportingly humane fashion and killed quickly with a single shot.
NEVERTHELESS, there is a particularly unsporting form of deer hunting that is often practiced in eastern North Carolina (and probably other similar landscapes as well) by “hunt clubs”, often on commercial timber land that is divided into roughly rectangular grids by a network of unpaved roads. The hunters will form a U-shaped phalanx around one side of the rectangle, and hunting dogs will be released in an array of different spots across the other side of it, to drive any deer in that section out in the direction of the hunters. MEANWHILE, the “hunters” will typically sit around, many of them getting a bit snockered while waiting to see if any deer emerge in range, .12 gauge shotguns at the ready. There’s virtually NO “hunting skill” whatever to this type of hunting – it’s simply a matter of luck being located where a deer happens to emerge trying to flee from the dogs, and not getting so snockered waiting that you’re unable to get off an accurate shot in time.
The only difference between this type of hunting and “trophy game” hunting of more exotic, rare big-game animals on private ranches is that deer are not rare or exotic, and people generally do use the meat from any harvested deer. But there is NO SPORTING HUNT NOR HUNTING SKILL TO IT WHATEVER.
Major Major Major Major
@mai naem mobile: and a white rhino! and an endangered mountain goat.
? Martin
When I was young and just a bad little kid
My momma noticed funny things I did
Like shootin’ puppies with a B B gun
I’d poison guppies, and when I was done
I’d find a pussy cat and bash its head
That’s when my momma said
(What did she say?)
She said “My boy, I think someday
You’ll find a way to make your natural tendencies pay”
You’ll be a dentist…
? Martin
FYWP moderation!
mai naem mobile
The only thing about killing his business now is that he’s 55. He’s probably made enough money to retire so unless he was hoping to hang onto the practice for one of his kids to take over,it’s not going to be as big a deal for him if he was 40 and really needed the $$$. It’s possible he’s blown a lot of his money on this expensive hunting hobby.
BTW, I’ve already seen RWNJ tweets talking about how we care about lions more than PP selling baby parts. Sigh.
EconWatcher
@Mandalay:
As I said, none of us has to eat meat, and we sure don’t have to eat it in the quantities many of us do, so no, I don’t think your distinction is very persuasive for a middle-class person in the US, although it would be for someone truly desperate for protein. YMMV.
Major Major Major Major
@EconWatcher: i don’t suppose the game was dangerous.
MazeDancer
So what this monster was thinking was “I want to kill a lion with a bow and arrow. How can I do that legally?”
How can anyone trying to pass as a human being have those thoughts? Killing a lion, period, is crazy. Thinking it’s possible to do so with any legal mechanism in this day of endangered species, also crazy. But it’s okay as long as it’s legal??? (Said the 70 year-old billionaire about bagging the 18-year-old kid.)
There is no way he planned such a trip without telling others Also cannot believe those others didn’t try to stop him. Bow and arrow hunters everywhere must be wanting to use him for target practice. 40 hours to die?? That is not what actual, responsible, animal-honoring hunters, who hunt for food do. They aim for fast death. They honor their prey.
May this man be mocked and ridiculed and shunned until he seeks therapy. And lose every penny he has. And then spend his days in raising money for animal causes.
SatanicPanic
being the most hated dentist in the world is quite an achievement. Just short of most hated dictator or most hated Red Sox fan
different-church-lady
On the issue of sport v. food hunting: there’s a slightly perverse point of view we have now that we live in a world where the vast majority of us do not have to physically take animal life in order to eat. We have others to do our slaughter for us. The vast majority of people in this country have probably never slaughtered an animal for food, nor even experienced it first hand. 150 years ago that ratio was probably vastly different.
At a time when slaughter was part of a person’s direct experience, the killing of deer or lion was probably met with a shrug. I am happy that today we live in a world where we have the luxury of choosing their living beauty over their “functionality”, but we should also remember how fortunate (or spoiled) we are to have that option.
SatanicPanic
@boatboy_srq: I wish there were more hunters to take care of the feral pigs and wild turkeys we have running around our state. I’ve thought about doing that myself.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@mai naem mobile: A big horn sheep? Aren’t those protected almost everywhere?
I thought rhinos were protected everywhere, too. .
A Ghost To Most
@efgoldman:
Dang! If the weather dude gets off on hail, he would be in heaven in frontrange CO. Seems like half our thunderstorms have hail, from tiny to way scary.
Randy P
@Botsplainer:
I’m leaning toward bow and arrow, in connection with John’s wish for a hunting “accident”.
In connection with the wackaloons “protecting” our military recruitment centers, I’m also imagining Confederate-flag-wrapped loons guarding Dr. Palmer’s office and waving open-carry hunting bows around.
different-church-lady
@MazeDancer:
By the time one is 55, affluent, and American, one is probably highly practiced at not associating with anyone who would trouble one’s beautiful mind with such objections.
different-church-lady
@Randy P:
Will we be clocking it to 40 hours as well? Let’s get the symmetry right here.
brendancalling
I’ll go further: I hope someone from PETA burns his practice down with him inside, chained to his examination chair.
Origuy
One of Juanita Jean’s commentors checked out his political contributions. Big surprise; five grand to Mitt in 2012.
different-church-lady
@brendancalling:
Shhh. Considering their track record, they might take you up on the offer.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
I can’t go read the article, I just can’t, because I’ve seen enough of. I saw the picture of the lion with the idiot dentist after it was dead and it just infuriates me. The bit about letting it suffer for 40 hours is just too much, or did I read that wrong and it suffered for 40 minutes, or was it the next day? Any of the above is unreasonable.
boatboy_srq
@MazeDancer: It strikes me that the “personal responsibility” and “individual rights” so revered by the Reichwing really do boil down to “there ain’t no law agin’ it.” And so help them Gun-Totin’ Capitalist Jeebus, there won’t never be no law agin’ it neither.
Librarian
TR was a conservationist who saved a lot more animals than he killed.
bluehill
American hunter to face poaching charges for killing Zimbabwe’s famous lion, Cecil. http://reut.rs/1IHMEBD
JPL
According to Palmer, he didn’t know he took a local favorite, so all is okay.
Here’s a picture outside his office.. https://twitter.com/PaulBlume_FOX9/status/626125492446433280/photo/1
Litlebritdifrnt
I just hope that he gets trampled to death by an Elephant that he is trying to kill. Karma.
kc
I would feel bad for his employees.
Palmer himself must be filthy rich; I gather from the news stories that he’s spent hundreds of thousands over the years on his hobby of killing animals for trophies.
Germy Shoemangler
Dress him up in a bear costume and let him loose in upstate ny during hunting season.
boatboy_srq
@SatanicPanic: Worth a letter to your state leg: unless somebody really likes feral pigs and wild turkeys, it’s probably something that would go through without much complaint. Here, it’s the deer: better venison than roadkill, IYAM.
cmorenc
Hopefully, Wonkette will come up with a suitably vicious lampoon of this dentist-buffoon. The entertainment value of that will be about the only good that comes out of the evil Dr. Walter Palmer.
dmsilev
@EconWatcher:
_The Most Dangerous Game_.
Germy Shoemangler
@kc:
I picked the wrong business. There’s lots of money in teeth, apparently.
Germy Shoemangler
Before today, I would have guessed that the man I see is the most hated dentist in America.
kc
@different-church-lady:
Personally I don’t care if people shoot deer (or ducks, or what have you) for meat. Good for them. I do have contempt for people like Palmer, though, who spend fortunes travelling to distant lands so they can slay beautiful, majestic, often-endangered, and generally inedible animals for fun and trophies.
shell
This fucker should find Sadaam Hussein’s hidey-hole and just lay low for a while.
Now that he’s been positively identified and admitted it (The Olympic Atlanta city bomber fiasco is a cautionary tale) I truely hope his business takes a short walk off a long pier. Go find some other way to finance your hobby, Asshole!
dm
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
I read the article this morning after Amir posted a link. I cried, so senseless.
shell
Hmmm, I think that was a Simpsons episode
boatboy_srq
@efgoldman: Entitled ars3hole, sexual predator, serial offender on the hunting-outside-the-law thing, and general overall douchenozzle. Sociopath is a small step from there.
scav
@kc: It’ll be creating a space for a less obnoxious human to be a dentist in — one that will also need employees. Probably wont be a perfect swap, but it’s not as though the local demand vanishes with the loss of Dentist BangBangHang. (eta, bow? ok,ThwangThwangHang.)
different-church-lady
@boatboy_srq: Wait, are we talking about Cosby now?
pseudonymous in nc
Wasn’t that photo of Fucker Dentist with a different lion he murdered a few years ago?
Anyway, the existence of Safari Club International makes me wish I believed in eternal damnation.
I see that people are leaving plush animals at the door of the practice. I’d have bought a tanker of pig blood and redecorated the place over night.
Also, I think it’s time for a bit of human flesh search engine activity. The SCI people like putting their names next to their kills and posing with them for photos, and they’re all usually rich professional types: lawyers, physicians, realtors, etc. Really isn’t too hard to assemble a list of businesses that fund the slaughter.
different-church-lady
@Germy Shoemangler:
I know for a goddamned fact there’s a lot of money in my teeth, that’s for sure…
RandomMonster
It would be fitting to release the guy in the middle of a vast African nature preserve with no weaponry and let him hike his way out.
different-church-lady
@kc: Oh, yes, there are grades and degrees, there’s no question.
Tokyokie
@jnfr: I’m guessing bringing the head of a illegally poached game animal into the country is a violation of U.S. law as well.
different-church-lady
Well this is a fine time to discover I’ve misplaced my copy of The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
Botsplainer
@Origuy:
Guess that won’t seem real smart in hindsight when he starts demanding that Obama fight off extradition to Zim…
Germy Shoemangler
@different-church-lady:
https://www.facebook.com/janisianpage/posts/880427738710612
Janis Ian shares her memories of The Cos
shell
Don’t know if it was poetic justice, but one of his wilderness trips, to South America, Roosevelt injured his leg and developed blood poisoning so severe they thought he was going to die.
Botsplainer
@boatboy_srq:
Having nearly destroyed a heavy sedan on one, I agree.
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: Not unless Cosby shot lions and tigers and bears for fun and photo-ops. Wasn’t it you that pointed out he got sued for sexual improprieties by a former employee/patient?
different-church-lady
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m sorry I brought it up…
@boatboy_srq: Wasn’t me.
eemom
I am fortunate to have a dentist who shares my love of animals. Has his doggies in his office every day. And he’s a very good and successful dentist so anyone who doesn’t like that can fuck off.
Whatever misery others have wished on the piece of human shit that is the subject of this post, times infinity.
shell
Reminds me a bit of those millionaires who pay a fortune to have native climbers drag their ass up Mr. Everest so they can have bragging rights.
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: LOTS of money in teeth. Particularly since there’s so little benefit in dental insurance and even PPACA doesn’t consider oral health central to one’s well-being. Dentistry – particularly the heavily invasive type – is a prime driver of pharmatourism because it’s so expensive and insurance pays so little of it.
/grump
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: SOMEBODY did. Oh well.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: Quelle surprise! (Not.)
jnfr
I think that dentist guy didn’t actually kill the lion. It was found 40 hours later by a Spanish hunter who killed it. It was that guy who took the head and pelt, so that at first they thought that was the whole story. Took a while for the baiting/poaching/bow-and-arrow story to come out.
Since the new alpha will kill as many of Cecil’s cubs as possible, so that their mothers will breed again, it will disrupt an entire generation of that pride as well.
And yes, lions are already vanishing very quickly, as are elephants and of course rhinos. Please donate to wildlife conservation groups if you can.
boatboy_srq
@shell: From now on, every time I hear somebody say that Hammond and Ludlow from JP and JP:TLW aren’t realistic, I’m going to bring this ars3hole up.
boatboy_srq
@jnfr: Somebody needs to point out to Palmer that he didn’t kill one lion, but six or seven. Not that he’d care, but it’s something he ought to understand.
kped
“I thought it was perfectly legal to tie a dead carcass to a car, drive into the wildlife preserve, then drive out when the lion took the bait, and then kill it. What’s wrong with any of that? Perfectly normal hunt, i’m a hunter, just like the olden days”
His wife has also been trying the standard “killing helps with preservation” shtick that so many of these lowlifes use. It’s pathetic.How does a dentist have $50K to blow on this? Do we need to cap dentist salaries???
(sorry dentists..this just annoys the hell out of me, not your professions fault).
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: Mustn’t forget that embedded in that equation is about 5 billion fewer humans 150 years ago to do the hunting/killing (and the eating, too, but that’s a different discussion).
Gravenstone
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m picturing the end of Trading Places …
eta: bah, that was a gorilla costume. Nevermind
Steve
Sometimes JC can go a little overboard but this time he nailed it.
shell
The lion also had a tracking collar on. When they were skinning him and cutting his head off, how did they not notice that?
And Wee Wifie is playing the ‘killing is preservation card’? How does that jibe with a protected species and the six cubs they say will probably be killed? Really, these people should just shut up and lay low before the public gets really homicidal.
Gravenstone
@kped: Killing does help with preservation. When the species you’re killing is overpopulated and is at increased threat for diseases or starvation. Clearly does not apply to lions.
Gravenstone
@shell:
They did notice it. According to the Guardian story, they tried (and failed) to destroy it.
jnfr
@jnfr:
Though the articles I”m reading vary on exactly who they say finally killed Cecil, so it’s possible that either Zimbabwe or I am confused.
@shell:
I read whoever killed him tried to hide the tracking collar but was unsuccessful. Oops, duplicate. Thanks, Gravenstone.
TriassicSands
Trophy hunting is among the more reprehensible activities of human beings. The idea that someone has accomplished something admirable by killing one of the finer specimens of a species is ludicrous.
Dr. Palmer’s “pursuit of an activity that [he] love[s] and practice[s] responsibly and legally” is disgusting. Such hunting should be made illegal. The idea that someone “loves” an activity that results in the slow and painful death of animals is beyond sickening.
different-church-lady
@jnfr: Well, it’s the Guardian, so they probably think the NSA did it.
John Revolta
C’mon you guys. This was obviously a vicious and dangerous beast. So much so, in fact, that the locals, who knew him best, even gave him a special, bloodchilling name.
Cecil. Brrrrrrr. Sends shivers and all. :(
Botsplainer
@shell:
How does a bow hunter miss seeing a tracking collar on a full grown male African lion? They’re not exactly dainty things, and bow distance would reflect this absence of fear of humans that made Cecil so photogenic.
CaseyL
I rarely feel the urge to cry at work, but this story is destroying me.
It’s not only Cecil, who seems to have been socialized just enough to lose an essential distrust of humans, and who endured god knows how much pain and fear over the 40 FUCKING HOURS between being wounded and being killed, but his offspring, now said to be doomed. An entire family gone, so one rotten smegma-brain of a human could prance around fancying himself big and brave.
Sometimes I really, really hate my species. This is one of those times.
Botsplainer
@Gravenstone:
The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone led to greater preservation and expansion of diversity – once they cut into the antelope numbers, trees were able to grow, the Beavers came back and the ecosystem returned to stasis as it had stood for 10s of thousands of years.
Dipfuck white land thieving ranchers and their profit margins on free ranging herds really screw this country up.
Gex
@RandomMonster: That would actually be sporting. No unfair advantages for the human. Better than he deserves.
jnfr
@Botsplainer:
Exactly. Thank you. Apex predators are hugely important in maintaining any ecosystem. They don’t breed like deer which are adapted to being prey.
JPL
@Botsplainer: My ex’s niece did this about the wolves.. link
I gave a small donation and I’m hoping she comes to the sons wedding next April.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike J:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k6YdqQhzeT0
mike with a mic
I’ll never understand the urge to spend huge sums of cash to fly out to the ass end of nowhere just to shoot an animal. I get hunting deer, I get killing native predators as needed such as bear if you live in a place with bears, I get fishing, I get native people hunting whales and other traditional items. But this sort of mess I don’t get. Why? You’re not going to eat it, it’s not a threat to your animals/children, there is no sport in it, it’s not a tradition, it takes no skill, and it costs a ton of money.
different-church-lady
@jnfr: That middle-of-the-food-chain thing is a lousy place.
seaboogie
@John Revolta: My thought, exactly.
mike with a mic
@jnfr:
Deer are so out of control they are rated as pests in many areas. You’re doing the ecosystem a favor by taking them out. Plus, people tend to eat them! Venison is good food. Tastes great, good for you, and helps reduce an animal population that is completely out of control.
01jack
I’m looking for something I can do, I want this execrable little man to know that he is the most-hated dentist in America, to feel some of the deep contempt people feel for a person who professes to take pleasure in the terror, suffering and death of a fellow creature.
Like a web funder to benefit wildlife, but titled “I Hate Walter Palmer this Much,” so the world could seen the piles of dollars adding up and know what they represent.
Origuy
@jnfr:
If true, that makes the dentist even worse. A bowhunter is supposed to track and finish off his kill, not let it suffer.
Why couldn’t he just come out here to California and hunt some wild boar? They’re big mean animals that are non-native and tear up the vegetation. Plus you can eat them.
Major Major Major Major
@mike with a mic: As long as you don’t get chronic wasting disease…
dogwood
@boatboy_srq:
I’ve spent a lot of extended time on Kauai. One day a few years back, I was visiting a favorite place, the Allerton Gardens. I was in a tour group that day and a woman from Connecticut was asking the typical question about the preponderance of feral chickens on the island. The guide explained that situation and informed her that the real problem was feral pigs which out number the human population of 65,000. He explained hunting those pigs was popular among many locals. That’s when she hit the roof lecturing the local guide about the immorality of hunting anything for sport. Her arrogance and ignorance provoked a vision in me of her dying in a collision with those pigs as she drove through the tree tunnel after dark.
Major Major Major Major
@Origuy: Hell, take a trip to Berlin, they have a boar infestation and I’m sure they’d be happy for his help. Bonus vacation to Germany.
MazeDancer
@TriassicSands:
It is the same level of reprehensible as liking to watch gladiators in the ring. Or bear-baiting. Or things that humans used to think were fine for reasons I cannot comprehend.
Apparently, there is an organization called Safari Club International that hides behind “helping wildlife” that helps insane rich people trophy hunt.
http://www.scifirstforhunters.org/
There is also a show they support called “Expedition Safari” on the Outdoor Channel. Feel free to tweet @OUTDChannel how you feel about that. And pummel @SafariClubIntl with your disgust.
mike with a mic
@Major Major Major Major:
Hell, we have boar infestations in the US, wild pig infestations as well. They will pay you to kill them!
Major Major Major Major
@mike with a mic: Sure but maybe he likes foreign travel. I’m trying to sweeten the deal
SiubhanDuinne
@A Ghost To Most:
Someone (George Carlin?) once observed that all hailstones are compared to balls — marbles, golf balls, softballs — whereas all tumours are compared to fruit (“A tumour the size of a kiwi,” said my otorhinolaryngologist about the Thing perched on my parotid gland. To which I replied, “Fruit or bird?” which I thought was pretty damn nimble of me considering I was hardly out of anesthesia at that point.)
mai naem mobile
Walter’s wife’s name is Tonette. Like Scott Walkers wife. I have no idea why but I want to giggle when I think of having a first lady named Tonette. Scared too. Sounds like such a Playboy stripper bimbo kind of name.
Mike in NC
The area where we live was completely forested 10-15 years ago. Due to construction of housing developments and golf courses, much of the deer population has been displaced, and you can see a dead deer by the side of the road almost every day.
Another issue is alligators. There are a lot of them locally and allowing the hunting of them in NC and SC is necessary to keep the population under control, as they have no natural predators (aside from other gators).
SiubhanDuinne
@cmorenc:
Here.
http://wonkette.com/592253/here-rage-at-this-dickhead-american-dentist-who-murders-beautiful-african-lions-for-fun
Major Major Major Major
@mai naem mobile: Or a tragic French orphan.
seaboogie
Thank you, John. I checked in with BJ (because my phone gave me a Tbogg twitter alert on this subject, and I don’t even follow twitter) to get a read on this, and there you were, venting what I was thinking.
Except that I am not even that angry anymore. Just resigned to the internets making us more aware of the darker, baser side of humanity. That we can rant and rail gives me hope, and I truly hope that sunlight (which eats everything with the UV rays) eventually also eats away at the dark and ugly moldering bits of some of us. Truth be told, most of us have a some of that darkness in the ways that we do, and there is hope in that shrugging off the worst of our impulses, and saying “No – that is not me, that is not we, that is not who we are…”. I think it’s what keeps us moving forward, incrementally….
I am off to rejoin nature, swimming in the silky (and right now semi-smelly) waters of the pond fed by the warm springs. Upside to being overweight? I float really, really well ‘neath the blue sky and old oaks…
different-church-lady
@seaboogie:
Thanks, that kinda puts a finger on something that’s been trying to get out of the back of my mind a lot lately.
SiubhanDuinne
@boatboy_srq:
Oh, yeah. Getting a mouthful of dental implants was a good part of the reason I retired at 70 instead of 65.
dogwood
Also too in terms of Kauai, I once had a conversation with a tourist who was bitching about the feral chicken population that exploded after Hurricane Iniki in the 90’s. Why don’t these people do something, she asked. I said they don’t want to introduce snakes, and inevitably mongoose into the ecosystem. Her reply- what do snakes and mongoose have to do with chickens?.
Ruckus
@Botsplainer:
I also used to hunt, ducks and geese 45+ yrs ago. But then I realized that although we ate everything we shot, it still wasn’t right. And I decided that if I wanted to hunt a camera was a far better tool. No dead animals, and any missed shots don’t risk any lives. Haven’t been hunting since 1969.
muddy
Waiting to hear the scolding for those in this thread who have said deer hunting is acceptable. I was informed in here earlier that bringing it up was derailing and also racist, this afternoon.
Crickets. Interesting. I guess it’s just me that’s offensive.
If I were the dentist’s mom I would have made him eat the lion. The whole thing. That’s the rule in this house. You shoot it, you eat it.
Ruckus
@Wallis Lane:
Sounds like the dentist I had as a kid.
different-church-lady
@muddy: The distribution of trolls from thread to thread is by no means even.
Major Major Major Major
@muddy: I only do birds (which I eat) but as long as you’re being honorable about it, not using a feed trap or something, deer *are* pests in a lot of places and ever since we killed all the wolves, guns and cars are their only natural predators.
NotoriousJRT
@mai naem mobile:
He might want to sell his practice, and this pub will not add value.
seaboogie
@different-church-lady: Yes…we can click away and feed our outrage (which is altering our minds to the degree that we indulge these habits), and/or we can choose to take a step back from the stimulus which is endlessly fed – shift into neutral without engaging the gears – and take a different view on the situation.
I just had to talk myself down from a fb posting of a photo of the white-smiling dentist with deceased Cecil, because it is not for my nephews and neice on fb. Not the place. Glad that I have this one.
http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/wpgo/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/dr-walter-j-palmer-pic1.jpg
And appropriate music too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ls7gemgQE
Thanks to the juicetariat for giving me a forum that won’t mess with the family decorum of fb (because my family is polite and correct there, which is why I just like and comment occasionally, but never post).
Rich (In Name Only) in Reno
How much you want to bet that when the local Republicans caught wind of this story the first thing they did was comb the voter records to see if he was a Democrat.
boatboy_srq
@SiubhanDuinne: We’ll talk. Later. Privately.
different-church-lady
@Rich (In Name Only) in Reno:
jonas
@Rich (In Name Only) in Reno: Oh, quite the contrary. The Republican base faps itself into a lather over this kind of stuff. If anything, they’ll try to raise a shitload of money off pantywaist liberals *criticizing* his bad-ass hunting skillz. Plus they can probably photoshop a picture of Obama with a bone through his nose and shaking a spear into the background of the fundraising mailer, which is gravy.
lol chikinburd
I felt a disturbance in the Force, as if a million voices sarcastically faked gasps of surprise
pseudonymous in nc
@seaboogie: That was a different lion. Fucker couldn’t even stop at one murder. He’s a fucking serial killer.
Howard Beale IV
It’s worse than you think.
This guy is a real psycho.
Suzanne
@mai naem mobile: I definitely care way more about this lion than I do about parts of aborted fetuses. This lion was tortured, and died just because this dude haz a sad about his penis. Aborted fetuses are not independently living creatures and they die so that the real person in the scenario can live a life of self-determination and agency.
Fuck this assclown. Spiky, acid-tipped dicks and all that.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I’d think that acid dipped arrows would be appropriate in this case. They also could be rusty and dipped in dung. Either way an appropriate tool for a tool.
lea-p
This is a wonderful way to watch African wildlife, live, twice a day. Safari drives in the Sabi Sands, part of Kruger Park. It’s free and you don’t need guns. You can take screen shots, too, if you want pictures of these beautiful animals.
Neal
Sometimes conventional justice is simply not enough….
Morzer
I am coming to the conclusion that the best way to preserve African wild life is to shoot more Teabagger dentists from Minnesota.
HeartlandLiberal
By yesterday mid-day his Dental practice had brought their Facebook and web sites offline. But their video on YouTube is still there, and still garnering comments. Not a lot of them favorable, I might add.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oZXO5TMe70
I admit to contributing:
You sick, sociopathic, murdering scum. I hope your business fails. We should no longer be killing these magnificent animals for sport. You helped participate in the final stages of what is becoming the last gasp and extinction of the large land mammals. Besides, this was a protected lion, well known and loved. So you’re, one sincerely hopes, going to feel some legal justice coming down on you, hard I hope. You disgust me. If I had been your patient, I guarantee you it would have been for the last time, and I would be telling everyone everywhere what a sick, sad, sorry excuse for a human being you are.
plcapeli
“YOU CAN GO TO HELL , DENTIST ”
quote from the opening moments of the film ‘DJANGO”
i hope the shame and death of his dental practice follow him all his days ….an american embarassment
i hope hes at the wrong end of a hunting accident ,
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: One of the worst things about TR. Hunting these creatures with modern weaponry is pathetic (IMO).
Paul in KY
@Chris: He was a man of his times & even with the shitty things he did, he’s still 200% better than any Republican today.
I think TR would be a Democrat, if he had lived in this era.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: Hundreds of years ago the Mongols used to do this (although much more efficiently and ruthlessly), as this was part of their combat training. Felt very sad for the panicked animals when I read about this.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: If the little fucker really wanted to kill stuff, he could go down to Arkansas & hunt feral pigs. No license, no limit, no restrictions on guns/bows/explosives.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: How about staking him out in the bush & then dripping trails of honey off into the bush?
A guy
I’m gathering from this thread that the phrase “not all lives matter” is appropriate for this dentist
A guy
In reading more about this guy it seems he has a history god egregious violation of game laws. Had the kill been legal i’d have no problem with it.
Alex
@Betty Cracker: Teddy gets cut a little more slack due to his role in the American conservation movement.
boatboy_srq
@Paul in KY: Feral pigs don’t make for good throw rugs, or for good photo-ops in exotic locales. Good BBQ, maybe; trophies, not so much. Besides, hunting something not easily lured and shot is no fun.
/snark
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: True dat! Plus, these feral pigs are a lot meaner and smarter than poor ole Cecil was. He’d probably shit his pants & wish he had a bigger bow, if one of them jumped out on him.
LongHairedWeirdo
Okay, I’m going to say it.
If you fly around the world, and are told you get to shoot a lion, all regulated and legal and shit, you do get to whine that you didn’t know it was a famous lion like Cecil. It’s still *whining* – but it’s a legit whine. He thought he was just going to shoot a lion he was allowed to shoot, and if some bleeding heart says “you can’t shoot a lion!” he gets to say “bite me; it was legal and I had all the permits.”
Now: if you want to say “what kind of douchecanoe just wants to fucking shoot a lion for the sake of shooting it? Not having to find, stalk, and kill a dangerous animal, but just, you know, LOOKIT ME I SHOT A LION IN SAFE SURROUNDINGS!” and I’ll say “some scummy kind of douchecanoe about whom other douchecanoes say ‘look, I *know* I’m a douchecanoe, but this guy disgusts me’.”
And if he wanted to shoot with a crossbow, the rule should have been “okay, but we’ve got a sharpshooter here, okay? If you miss your kill, the sharpshooter makes it. You get one chance because we’re not going to make an animal suffer, nor have a wounded lion out there going berserk. You sure you want to use your toy, and not a rifle?”
But – I have to give him “how the fuck did I know it was Cecil?”
Rob
I am glad to see all of these “Americans” sincerely condemning something that is evil much the same way the rest of the world does. I had given up hope on you people after you nearly destroyed the Dixie Chicks simply because they said they didn’t think George W. Bush would be a good President, and they were compelled to cough up a fake apology just to salvage their livelihood – there is free speech at work.
Carol
This so called piece of crap obviously has cold blooded killer in his blood and can’t stop. Now he’s going for the famed ones, like Cecil the lion he murdered. I’m sure he knew exactly what the plan was. His passion is murder. I read that his wife does the same. I hope his karma comes back to him and all poachers as well. These kinds of people put their greed before life. They don’t have compassion, have an ill regard for life, get elated about their kills, brag about their kills, and of course there’s the greed-money that comes into play. And of course these evil psychos smile in their picture pose with the carcass and go even further to post them online. Purely evil. Walter Palmer has finally shot his own reputation.