MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Minnesota dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion fueled a global backlash is disputing some accounts of the hunt as he gets ready to return to work.
In an interview Sunday with The Associated Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune, Walter Palmer says he'll be back at his suburban Minneapolis dental practice Tuesday. He has spent more than a month out of sight after becoming the target of protests and threats.
He says he was surprised to learn his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe's treasured animals and says wouldn't have hunted Cecil had they known.
Cecil was a fixture in a vast national park and was part of Oxford University lion research.
Palmer is disputing conservationist accounts that the wounded lion wandered for 40 hours and was finished off with a gun, saying it was tracked down the next day and killed with an arrow.
(Copyright 2015 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
