{"id":10350,"date":"2015-07-28T23:52:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T23:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10350"},"modified":"2015-07-28T23:52:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T23:52:45","slug":"dentist-in-trouble-over-poaching-allegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10350","title":{"rendered":"Dentist in trouble over poaching allegation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/cecil.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-10351\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/cecil.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Cecil\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/cecil.jpg 868w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/cecil-300x221.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit\u00a0that I hadn&#8217;t heard of Cecil the Lion &#8230; until today.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s when I learned of the beast&#8217;s death, allegedly at the hands of an American dentist known for hunting big game in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Well, this was no ordinary hunt &#8212; allegedly!<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"S03LcItQd3\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/thegrio.com\/2015\/07\/28\/zimbabwe-police-american-dentist-being-sought-lion-poaching\/\">Zimbabwe police: American dentist being sought for lion poaching<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Zimbabwe police: American dentist being sought for lion poaching&#8221; &#8212; TheGrio\" src=\"https:\/\/thegrio.com\/2015\/07\/28\/zimbabwe-police-american-dentist-being-sought-lion-poaching\/embed\/#?secret=HITrSzgYop#?secret=S03LcItQd3\" data-secret=\"S03LcItQd3\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Cecil was known throughout southern Africa. He was beloved by the people of Zimbabwe. He was a rare black-mane lion.<\/p>\n<p>Cecil is now dead. Dr. Walter Palmer is facing possible charges of poaching.<\/p>\n<p>Look, I&#8217;m not a hunter, although I&#8217;ve gone on a couple of hunting excursions in my life. I once went looking for black bear in the Olympic Mountains of Washington state. We didn&#8217;t find any, although I did spot a cougar running through the rain forest.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Palmer has been charged with doing something quite reprehensible. He has been accused of luring Cecil out of his protected area into a neighboring tract. He was baited with a carcass and then allegedly shot with a cross bow. But the arrow didn&#8217;t kill him. Palmer and his guides allegedly then looked for hours to find the wounded animal; they reportedly\u00a0killed, skinned\u00a0and beheaded the great beast.<\/p>\n<p>This story makes me sick.<\/p>\n<p>Palmer supposedly paid $50,000 for the hunt, which I reckon came from a whole lot of root canals, bridge work and tooth extractions back in Minnesota, where the dentist has his practice.<\/p>\n<p>Palmer said he didn&#8217;t realize he shot a beloved animal and that he followed normal hunting procedures.<\/p>\n<p>If this man is guilty, he deserves the maximum punishment that Zimbabwe law allows.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not saying he deserves the same fate that Cecil met, but I feel strangely compelled to point out\u00a0that several African governments have enacted strict punishment for those caught poaching wildlife. They have ordered park rangers to shoot poachers on sight.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, they take this crime seriously.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll admit\u00a0that I hadn&#8217;t heard of Cecil the Lion &#8230; until today. That&#8217;s when I learned of the beast&#8217;s death, allegedly at the hands of an American dentist known for hunting big game in Africa. Well, this was no ordinary hunt &#8212; allegedly! Zimbabwe police: American dentist being sought for lion poaching Cecil was known &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10350\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dentist in trouble over poaching allegation<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[894,3617,4332,5164,5331],"class_list":["post-10350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-cecil-the-lion","tag-poaching","tag-southern-africa","tag-walter-palmer","tag-zimbabwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}