Where in the world is the dentist that killed Cecil the lion?

PETA, The US government and even the country of Zimbabwe are hunting down the dentist, Walter Palmer, that lured, killed, skinned and beheaded Cecil the lion.

The only problem is that Palmer has disappeared.

The Washington Post reports that officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been knocking on Palmer’s home and office doors, calling all the numbers they can find and stuffing his email inbox to the brim.

Does Palmer know he’s being hunted down?

“I’m sure he knows,” Ed Grace, chief of law enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told The Washington Post. “We’ve made repeated attempts to try and get in contact with him.”

Joining the hunt is the country of Zimbabwe, the country in which Palmer killed Cecil the lion.

“We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he can be held accountable for his illegal action,” Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri said in a press conference on Friday in Zimbabwe.

On top of all these, and perhaps most dramatically of all, animal rights group PETA has called for Palmer to be hanged.

“Hunting is a coward’s pastime,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a statement. “If, as has been reported, this dentist and his guides lured Cecil out of the park with food so as to shoot him on private property, because shooting him in the park would have been illegal, he needs to be extradited, charged and, preferably, hanged.”

Preferably hanged.

Matt Lee is a Web producer for Metro New York. He writes about almost everything and anything. Talk to him (or yell at him) on Twitter so he doesn’t feel lonely @mattlee2669.