Walter Palmer, the Minn. dentist and big game trophy hunter accused of killing Cecil, the much loved, protected lion has returned to work today, according to FOX News and as expected, not without incident. Cathy Pierce was not the only protester who rose early to heckle the the lion killer, yelling "Extradite Palmer!" as the dentist was escorted by staff into his Bloomington clinic. Pierce wore a shirt with Cecil's photo on it.
"If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn't have taken it," Palmer said, according to HNGN. "Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion."
Cecil was a fixture in the Zimbabwe Hwange National Park and had a GPS collar as part of Oxford University research, according to YAHOO! News.
The collar is visible in Palmer's picture taken with the freshly killed lion and was later found, after Palmer and his hired crew allegedly tried to hide it, as previously reported by HNGN. Palmer was smiling triumphantly in the picture with the dead lion, something he wasn't doing for the reporters stationed outside his clinic.
Employees at the clinic were doing double duty Tuesday, escorting patients to and from the clinic, in addition to Palmer.
In the new photos of Palmer, he appears to have visibly aged since this unfavorable social media spotlight shone in his direction more than a month ago. The international uproar had caused, some say, Palmer to go into hiding.
Palmer disagrees, according to CNN, "I've been out of the public eye seeing family and friends," he said. Either way, Tuesday's return to practice is the first time the vilified dentist had been seen in six weeks.
In a tribute to Cecil and a reminder to his killer, protesters and Cecil supporters littered Palmer's practice door with little messages that read: "Justice for Cecil" and "May you never hunt again."
