Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion fueled a global backlash is disputing some accounts of the hunt as he gets ready to return to work.
In an interview Sunday with The Associated Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune, Walter Palmer says he'll be back at his suburban Minneapolis dental practice Tuesday. He has spent more than a month out of sight after becoming the target of protests and threats.
He says he was surprised to learn his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe's treasured animals and says wouldn't have hunted Cecil had they known.
Cecil was a fixture in a vast national park and was part of Oxford University lion research.
Palmer is disputing conservationist accounts that the wounded lion wandered for 40 hours and was finished off with a gun, saying it was tracked down the next day and killed with an arrow.
%@AP Links
219-c-18-(Brian Bakst, AP correspondent)-"it was shot"-AP correspondent Brian Bakst reports Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who killed a protected lion in Zimbabwe, wants to tell his side of the story, and refutes the accounts that the lion spent more than 40 hours suffering with an arrow that didn't kill him right away. (6 Sep 2015)
<<CUT *219 (09/06/15)££ 00:18 "it was shot"
220-c-16-(Brian Bakst, AP correspondent Brian Bakst reports)-"posed since July"-AP correspondent Brian Bakst reports the Minnesota dentist who become the subject of fierce protests over the killing of a protected lion, wants to get out his side of the story, but he limited questions in an AP interview, and wouldn't allow a photographer or tape recording equipment. (6 Sep 2015)
<<CUT *220 (09/06/15)££ 00:16 "posed since July"
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
