The dentist who killed Cecil the lion is going back to work

The Minnesota dentist who sparked worldwide fury after killing the lion named Cecil says that he’s going back to work.

Walter Palmer went to Zimbabwe, lured Cecil out of his sanctuary, shot him with an arrow, then tracked the now-wounded lion down, killed him, removed his head and skin, and called it a day. People everywhere were not happy when they learned of these details, and Palmer has been laying low for weeks.

Now, though, he wants to resume his life. “I’m a health professional,” he told the Star-Tribune. “I need to get back to my staff and my patients, and they want me back. That’s why I’m back.”

The paper writes that Palmer, an enthusiastic and experienced killer of animals, also wanted the world to know that killing, skinning and beheading Cecil took “far less time” than the 40 hours most reports said it took.

Palmer had said previously that he didn’t know the lion he was killing was Cecil—something that some experts have said was very hard to believe.