American dentist Walter Palmer, who made headlines worldwide for killing the prized African lion named Cecil, returned to his practice in Bloomington, Minnesota, on Tuesday.
Palmer broke his silence on Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune after keeping a low profile from the press.
“I have a lot of staff members, and I’m a little heartbroken at the disruption in their lives, and I’m a health professional. I need to get back to my staff and my patients, and they want me back. That’s why I’m back,” Palmer said.
Palmer’s practice has been active for several weeks ago no without him. According to him, “I’ve been out of the public eye seeing family and friends.”
Palmer continued in his interviews, commenting, “This has been especially hard on my wife and my daughter They’ve been threatened in the social media, and again. I don’t understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all.”
Palmer killed Cecil the lion with a compound bow near Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park back in early July. Cecil’s death is apparently not the first incident Palmer has had into trouble hunting.
According to court documents, a man with the same name, age, and town illegally killed a black bear a couple of years ago in Wisconsin. An article published by the New York Times back in 2009 profiled Palmer and his hunting methods, claiming he had served a year of probation over the false statements case.