Long before he was accused of poaching an African lion named Cecil, Walter Palmer was stalking suspected poachers on his private hunting land in northwestern Minnesota.
The Twin Cities dentist guarded his acreage and property lines so fiercely he alienated and even frightened local hunters, some Clay County residents and officials said. Run-ins with Palmer became the stuff of local hunting lore, said Clay County Commissioner Jenny Mongeau, whose district includes Palmer's land.
"You don't go close to it because he would report you," said Mongeau. "He has zero positive relations with any of the neighbors, which is very uncommon for this area."
A global furor erupted after news broke that Palmer, a veteran big-game hunter, had killed the famous research lion in a nighttime hunt in Zimbabwe in early July, maiming him with a compound bow and then finishing him off hours later. The lion was baited and the hunt was conducted on private land where, some authorities have said, there was no permit to kill a lion.
Despite accusations against Palmer, only the professional hunter he hired, Theo Bronkhorst, has been charged in Zimbabwe.
Palmer, 55, has not responded to multiple phone calls from the Star Tribune in the past two weeks, including requests for comment on this article. Vilified by animal welfare activists and the target of vitriol in social media, Palmer and his wife have not been staying at their Eden Prairie home or at their vacation home in Florida. Palmer's dental practice in Bloomington remains shuttered.
In his one statement to the media last month, Palmer expressed deep regret for killing the lion but denied knowingly breaking any laws, saying he "relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt."
Palmer's Minnesota hunting refuge lies between the town of Barnesville and Pelican Rapids, about 45 minutes southeast of Fargo-Moorhead. Locals talk with envy about the nearly 900-acre spread of rolling hills, oak woodlands and small lakes. It's some of the most pristine countryside in the area, they say.