This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
The Internet outrage over the killing of Cecil the Lion continued over the weekend. Last week, Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota admitted to hunting and killing Cecil the Lion, the star attraction at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park.
The hunt took place at the beginning of July, but last week the Zimbabwean Conservation Task Force identified Palmer and two local Zimbabwean men as the responsible party. Many are now demanding that Palmer face prosecution. Here are 5 updates on the killing of Cecil:
1. Walter Palmer has gone into hiding
Killer of Cecil the Lion Closes Dental Practice #WalterPalmer #TheoBronkhorst http://t.co/wWbFZul8TE pic.twitter.com/Tw4DXMF1Df
— posted-today.org (@postedtodayorg) July 30, 2015
The backlash against him is so intense that Palmer has been laying low since news broke last week of his involvement. He closed his dental practice and could not be found at his home. Palmer finally contacted U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials on Thursday night who had been trying to reach him all last week to investigate the case.
2. Zimbabwean officials are urging Palmer's extradition Â
WE ARE WITH YOU, #ZIMBABWE!! Extradite these lousy cowards! #CecilTheLion #ExtraditeWalterPalmer pic.twitter.com/EsHsUdA8vP — Bertha (@BSVLMJ) August 2, 2015
On Friday, Zimbabwe’s environment minister called for the extradition of Palmer. The minister said "she understood the process was underway to have Dr. Palmer extradited from the United States and that the 'foreign poacher' needed to be held accountable for his actions," reports The New York Times.
3. Cecil the Lion's "brother" Jericho alive and well despite rumors
BREAKING NEWS - JERICHO HAS BEEN SHOT TODAY AT 4pm - It is with huge disgust and sadness that we have just been...
Posted by ZCTF - Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force on Saturday, August 1, 2015
The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force announced on its Facebook page Saturday that Cecil's "brother" Jericho was shot and killed by a poacher. Those rumors turned out to be false for two reasons: one, the lion in question was perfectly fine and two, Jericho is not Cecil's blood brother, but "rather a partner in a 'coalition' of a kind often formed by unrelated male lions to better compete for territory and prides," the director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford told The Guardian. Still, the task force said in their follow up post that another "lion has in fact been killed," just not the one that they thought it was.
Mistaken Identity - Jericho is in fact alive and well and has adopted Cecil's cubs. We were given 3 separate confirmed...
Posted by ZCTF - Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force on Sunday, August 2, 2015
4. Many are urging the U.S. to put the African lion on the endangered species list
Although adding the African lion would not outright ban trophy hunting in Africa, it would require a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in order to be able to bring the lion or its body parts back into the country and that permit would only be issued if "the agency determined that importing a lion or parts of it would not be harmful to the survival of the species, Tanya Sanerib, at Center for Biological Diversity told Reuters.
The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the African lion as endangered last year. Fifty Democrats in the House of Representatives sent a letter on Thursday to the service asking it to finalize listing the lion as endangered.
5. Cecil the Lion lit up the Empire State Building over the weekend
#CecilTheLion honored in @EmpireStateBldg light show: http://t.co/9VwgQakHtR pic.twitter.com/0Sk3jQltBB
— CNN International (@cnni) August 3, 2015
On Saturday, documentary filmmakers of Racing Extinction projected a loop of images of endangered animals on the Empire State Building to raise awareness about how we are in the midst of the planet's sixth mass extinction and humans are to blame. The filmmakers held a similar event last September on the day before the People’s Climate March and two days before the UN Climate Summit.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
President Obama: ‘It’s Time for America and the World to Act on Climate Change’
What the Killing of Cecil the Lion Has in Common with the Slaughter of Pilot Whales
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Michael Halpern
The Trump administration is scrambling to reconcile the president's contradictions of statements made by federal health scientists about the emerging coronavirus crisis. Their solution: muzzle scientists, require that all statements be politically vetted through Vice President Pence, and punish federal employees who draw attention to gross negligence. This is a highly dangerous power grab that undermines both emergency response and public faith in the reliability of information coming out of the government. And it speaks to the incompetence and incoherence of the response to this crisis so far.
By Zulfikar Abbany
Family lore has it my father was born on Feb. 29, 1936 — a leap day in a leap year many moons ago. It seems fitting for a man who says he's "not interested" in birthdays that he should have the option of missing his three years out of (almost) every four.
While keeping track of the new trends in the diamond industry can be hard, it is still an essential task of any savvy consumer or industry observer. Whether you are looking to catch a deal on your next diamond purchase or researching the pros and cons of an investment within the diamond industry, keeping up with the trends is imperative.
Trending
By Jessica Corbett
The World Health Organization on Friday raised the global risk of the new coronavirus to its highest level and reiterated the necessity of worldwide containment efforts as U.S. President Donald Trump continued to face widespread criticism over how his administration has handled the public health crisis so far.