As has been widely reported in the media by now, Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer is a big-time game hunter, and he travels around the world to shoot big game with a bow and arrow. He can, of course, do whatever he wants as long as he can afford it. But now, in conjunction with his big game guides, to whom he paid more than $50,000, Palmer lured a lion named Cecil, the “star attraction” in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, out of the game reserve in which he was living to shoot him with a bow and arrow. The lion did not die immediately, so they had to track him for 40 hours before finishing him off.
Unfortunately for them, Cecil also had a GPS collar, which they were unable to remove. Two people are now under arrest — Theo Bronchorst, the guide who helped lure Cecil out of the park, and the ironically named Honest Trymore Ndlovu, the farmer on whose land they lured the big cat, with his permission — but the dentist is back in Eden Prairie Minnesota.
This whole thing was so upsetting that it actually got Jimmy Kimmel — who is not known to take many things so seriously — that he was visibly upset.
On Tuesday, the dentist’s practice was closed because there was so much outrage on social media. He is now in hiding. He has since “apologized” and claimed that he was relying on the expertise of his guides and assumed that all his permits were in order and that everything was legal.
Yeah. Right.
He couldn’t exactly have missed the fact that his guides were luring the lion out of the national park by baiting him with dead meat.
Palmer is free to be a big game hunter; the rest of us are free to close down his business and hound him into obscurity. I realize shaming on the Internet is a dangerous thing, but this guy deserves the shame.
True, although many use communicating on the internet for negative influence, it’s also a tool for good. Now, people can have instant access to information they previously wouldn’t have. If something like this occurs the sphere of it expands quite rapidly and it is resolved because so many came to say something about it- via the internet. I have a feeling that if this type of social media keeps up a lot of issues can be resolved due to everyone’s input.
Reblogged this on Left of Center and commented:
I had been planning on writing a post about Cecil the lion but stumbled upon this post which sums up my thoughts, and more, in a well written piece.
The interesting thing about this whole story is the fact that it’s a microcosm of the much larger problem of our apparent political impasse on issues facing our nation. Actually, just like in this case, the vast majority of people all agree that in some form or another this was wrong. However, there are crazies who see no problem with how Cecil was treated, just like we have crazies who stand up on stage and talk about how all Mexicans are rapists and/or that the earth is 6,000 years old. In both cases, I think the vast majority are no doubt on the correct side of this issue, yet there’s always the angry “get off my lawn” grandpa who would rather keep their minds closed, their guns loaded, and their facts placed nicely in the trash.