The (perhaps only) good thing to come out of the crummy situation involving the senseless demise of Zimbabwe’s Cecil The Lion at the hands of a callous and profoundly greedy American Dentist is that the internet’s reaction – by and large – has been one of universal condemnation.
The US dentist – a clearly charming bloke with a long history of trophy hunting by the name of Walter Palmer – allegedly paid somewhere in the vicinity of US$50,000 to travel to Zimbabwe, have guides lure Cecil out of protected park zone, shine a spotlight on him, just so he could put a bolt through the poor creature with his crossbow; a shot that wasn’t fatal, and lead to a 40 hours of the animal walking around with an arrow presumably stuck in it before the hunters caught up to him and finished him off with a gunshot.
Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel took the story to heart, dedicated part of his monologue to addressing Palmer – even getting choked up as he talked about the fate of the animal – and didn’t shy away from giving him a red hot serve in the process.
Kimmel urged the audience to at least make some positive things come from this sad scenario by donating to the Oxford research team that was tracking Cecil, and provides valuable research into the behaviour – and thus conservation – of animals.
[Editor’s Note: Video has since been deleted]
You tell ’em, Jimmy.
Photo: Michael Tran via Getty Images.
via Uproxx.
