Ted Nugent has a reputation as an avid hunter, and a bigmouth. When news broke about the Minnesota dentist who hunted and killed a lion in Zimbabwe that turned out to be almost a national mascot, Nugent jumped to the hunter’s defense.
CNN reported the details of the killing of Cecil the Lion, based on police reports from Zimbabwe.
According to the CNN report, Cecil was “part of an Oxford University research project and wore a GPS collar.” They further report that Cecil was “lured out of the Hwange National Park with food, shot with a crossbow, tracked for 40 hours and finally killed with a gun.”
Nugent’s take on it is different. He posted in response to a question from a fan on Facebook.
The whole story is a lie. It was a wild lion from a “park” where hunting is legal & ESSENTIAL beyond the park borders. all animals reproduce every year & would run out of room/food to live w/o hunting. I will write a full piece on this joke asap. God are people stupid
It's not for food. It's not the shooting, or tin cans would do. It must just be the thrill of killing. Mental. http://t.co/0fjtXoC1ML
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) July 28, 2015
The man Ted Nugent is defending is Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer, who says he paid $55,000 to hunt in a private safari with professional guides. When he learned that his prize trophy kill was almost a national pet, he was taken aback.
“I hired several professional guides, and they secured all proper permits,” Palmer said in a statement. “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.”
Celebrities have come out in droves to condemn Palmer.
Candice Swanepoel, a Victoria’s Secret model, took to her Instagram account to express her disgust with the killing of Cecil the Lion. Along with the now-famous image of Walter Palmer posing with Cecil’s body, she ran the caption:
How dare you #walterpalmer !!!! As a South African and as a human being I can’t express how deeply saddened I am by this, what pleasure do you get out of doing such a thing!Seeing these animals alive in their natural habitat is such a blessing, you have to be so sick to want to kill such a majestic creature of God. You come to Africa with your dollars and euros thinking you can buy power by taking advantage of Africa’s poverty and paying people to help you kill an innocent creature. Disgusting! I hope you get what you deserve #walterpalmer
But Candice’s post did attract some detractors. An Instagram user with the handle “alleekathleen” responded with a similar message as Nugent:
Walter Palmer, I’m sorry at how people in our society have slammed down on you. You clearly had a guide w you and he should have known that that loin had a GPS on it. Now if you upset Bc he shot a loin in general, people AND ANIMALS hunt all the time. It can have a natural effect on the environment in which if the elder loin or moose or deer is hunted down it allows the younger animals to step up and have more diversity in the gene pool of animals, there is a whole science behind it and typically every animal is given fair chance. I’m not saying every hunter is respectable like this but almost all are. He payed 50,000 dollars to hunt that loin and I’m sure he respects the creature and would use every part of its body and not throw some of it away, like the native Americans in Alaska do w whales. It’s a similar concept and people are so quick to judge and say how disgusting such a thing is before they actually open their minds and do their homework. Humans have used hunting as a source of food since pre historic times. It’s a part of life and that loin prolly had more of a chance then most cows, pigs or chickens eaten today. So go you water Palmer and don’t let those people get you down. Just my thoughts on it. :)))
Ted Nugent has said he will “write a full piece” on the incident, perhaps after he actually reviews the facts.