Before today, the customer review page for River Bluff Dental (located at 10851 Rhode Island Ave So., Bloomington, MN, 55438) had received 16 comments, most of them complimentary. (At least one review seems to have been written while still under the effects of general anesthetic, but it is a five-star write-up nonetheless.)

Today, the family dentistry practice received about one hundred more reviews (I stopped counting a couple hours ago). Its Yelp page has received more than 1000 reviews today alone, most from writers who will never see the inside of the place nor ever breathe the air of Bloomington, Minnesota. All of the reviews are negative, and many threaten one of its dentists physical harm. Its website, riverbluffdental.com, displays one line: “HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.” The website has crashed.

Here’s the thing about threatening harm, on the Internet and in real life: violence and threats of violence are evil, and people really need to stop threatening people with harm and stop doing harm. The problem is, the following story which stars one of the dentists at River Bluff Dental, puts even my idealism to a test.

The Telegraph in England revealed today that one of River Bluff’s dentists, a Dr. Walter James Palmer, is the big game hunter who was responsible for slaying Cecil the lion, a 13-year-old big cat, on July 1.

Cecil was a lion that was actually internationally famous; many photographers have photographed him in his habitat, Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. He had become something of a symbol of the park, of lions, of African wildlife in general. This was Cecil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4a2htZ2wIQ
 
There are few stories in life in which right and wrong can be presented in stark black and white terms. This is one of them.

The details, presented plainly, are these: Cecil was protected and wore a GPS on his collar to keep track of him. After the hunt, the collar was removed from the cat. This was likely done to pretend that the hunters thought they were after any old anonymous big cat. Further, Cecil and the entire animal population at Hwange are protected by the fact that hunting is illegal inside the park. (If an animal leaves the park and wanders onto private neighboring property on which the owner is hosting a hunt, so be it seems to be the attitude. Hence the use of GPS collars.) Cecil was lured from the park’s environs at night, shot with a bow and arrow, which wounded the animal, and was trailed for two entire days by the hunting team, which included Dr. Palmer, when he then dispatched Cecil with a rifle. Cecil was turned into a trophy.

Caretakers at the park noted Cecil’s disappearance and then found his remains and discovered that the collar had been removed.

Big game hunters pay a lot of money for specific hunts and for the guaranteed success of killing and trophying specific types of animal. (Is “trophying” a word? Ought to be. This story even makes pacifist me, with my “stop threatening each other!” pleas, want to trophy Dr. Palmer.) They spend tens of thousands of dollars above the costs of traveling to the exotic locations. Some reports say Dr. Palmer spent $45,000, others report higher figures, based on what the big game guides charge.

And yet the story actually gets worse as one reads on. First, the effects this killing may have on the lion population in the park: Cecil was connected with another male cat, named Jericho. It was observed that the two oversaw two prides made up of six lionesses and a dozen cubs. Jericho most likely will not be able to protect all of them alone, so any males that come into the territory and mate up with the widowed lionesses will most likely, based on observed lion behavior, kill off Cecil’s cubs in a dominance claim. Jericho may do this as well. Infanticide is a common story in wildlife, but Cecil did not die naturally as a part of the cycle of life. A freaking dentist from Minnesota killed him with a bow and arrow.

Next worse are the statements from the dentist’s people. The man responsible for the hunt, and thus the man Dr. Palmer paid for the guaranteed successful slaughter and trophying of a big cat, Theo Bronkhorst, is more than likely the party responsible for luring Cecil outside of Hwanga, and he is actually who reported what happened to the authorities. He called it a “mistake.” If it was a mistake, he would not have attempted to destroy the GPS collar, which he did try to do.

He and the owner of the land on which the hunt took place, Honest Trymore Ndlovu, are facing charges in Zimbabwe and are due to appear in court next week. Zimbabwe National Parks issued a statement today confirming the charges: “Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter with Bushman Safaris, is facing criminal charges for allegedly killing a collared lion on Antoinette farm in Gwayi Conservancy, Hwange district on 1 July 2015. All persons implicated in this case are due to appear in court facing poaching charges. Both the professional hunter and land owner had no permit or quota to justify the offtake of the lion and therefore are liable for the illegal hunt.” No permit.

Dr. Palmer is safely in hiding right now in Minnesota (it is reported that his office was closed for business before lunch today, seemingly abruptly), which is more than any animal that was ever lured out of its environment for him to hunt ever had. He released a statement today. It was published in the Star Tribune: “I hired several professional guides, and they secured all proper permits. 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. I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.” Did the guide lie to him about the permits? Or did Dr. Palmer simply not care?

He did not know Cecil was a famous big cat, “Until the end of the hunt,” when they illegally de-collared Cecil. Yeah, right. Someone please check on the betting line for the likelihood that Dr. Palmer knew that this was not only any big cat but a famous big cat when he embarked on the hunt.

According to the Star Tribune, this is not the first time Dr. Palmer has killed outside the rules. He is alleged to have done the same thing that his team apparently did to Cecil, lure an endangered animal out of its protected environment to kill it and then literally drag the carcass into an allowed zone:

In 2008, Palmer pleaded guilty in federal court in Wisconsin to misleading a federal agent in connection with the hunting of a black bear. Two years earlier, Palmer killed a bear near Phillips, in Price County. That location was 40 miles outside where bear hunting was allowed at the time.
 
Palmer and others transported the bear carcass to a registration station inside the allowed hunting zone. At the station, he falsely certified that the bear had been killed in the legal zone. He then brought the bear to Minnesota.
 
Twice, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent interviewed Palmer, who said he believed he killed the bear legally.
 
Palmer, who faced a maximum penalty of five years in prison, was sentenced to one year’s probation and fined nearly $3,000.

Dr. Palmer does not face charges in Zimbabwe, at least not yet, but even if he does, I doubt he will be extradicted.

The Star Tribune’s story makes it obvious that this is what he, a well-known big game hunter, does: Laugh at the laws protecting endangered animals so he can kill them for a trophy and some photos of himself with a carcass.

Hunting for sport. Because the animals are big and strong, and all the hunter has to protect himself against the big and strong animal is a team and a vehicle and weapons and illegal lures and illegal hunting practices and loads of cash for justice.

The reason this is a story at all, and the reason his dental practice is receiving so much hate mail today, is the fact that he is not the only big game hunter who has done this in the past, and because someone is doing the very same thing somewhere in he world (maybe even a hunting buddy of Dr. Palmer’s in the Midwest) right now, and because these names usually remain unknown.

I do not wish him physical harm, but this is only because I do not wish anyone physical harm. But I do hope he is fearing it a little tonight. I hope Cecil and that dead Wisconsin bear both pop up in his dreams tonight and every night. I hope in his dreams his gun jams and his bow and arrow can not be found, every single night.

He should be extradicted to Zimbabwe if the authorities want to press charges. Cecil deserves it.

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