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I have no words for the lunatic who shot a protected lion in my birth country of Zimbabwe: none printable, anyway.  :thumbdown:

http://www.news24.com/Green/News/US-dentist-I-thought-lion-hunt-was-legal-20150729 (http://www.news24.com/Green/News/US-dentist-I-thought-lion-hunt-was-legal-20150729)

I would like to hunt him down and mount his head on my wall.  :hatred:

My wife mentioned this morning that the US was looking into wither or not he had broken any laws in the states by killing it, so its possible he could be prosecuted for it.

Just a shame that doesn't bring the animal back. I have no problem with killing animals for food, but hunting trophies just disgust me.

74% of the adult male lions in Africa die by hunting.

The plan was to lure ("bait") the animal out of the sanctuary, to privately-owned land where it is legal to hunt.  "Baiting" IS legal in Zimbabwe.  The only problem here is that the landowner had to have a lion listed on their hunting license - and this landowner did not have one listed for 2015.  That makes the hunt/killing illegal.

The dentist is saying he relied completely on the expertise of the professional hunting guides.  This guy has hundreds of trophy kills all over the world.  He brags about hunting since he was 5 years old.  We are to believe that when he was TOLD to shoot what was obviously a male lion, while they had been hunting for another kind of cat (leopard, I think) he did not question it.  Donkey dust.

Sorry: with his extensive experience I do not buy the "I was completely following the directions of my guides so it is not my fault" excuse.

Extradite the bastard.  I think they should go all "Naked Prey" on him.

Agreed:

(https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/stills/6411-fdb96601ba443aae521eaac6fb2719b3/Film_415w_NakedPrey_original.jpg)

I don't have an issue with hunting, not even with trophy hunting if it is done legally and the fees and licenses are dedicated to wildlife conservation.

I do have an issue with luring an animal from a protected region to private land for the sole purpose of killing it.
It appears several laws were broken.

This story, as enraging as it is painfully sad, touches something deep in me, because when I was little my grandpa used to go off on hunting expeditions to far away places and I hated so much when he'd do that, killing animals just for the sake of taking their lives. I think he was a high energy type person, instinctive, with a great need for....I don't know, sensory input, and these trips he'd take every year were a big part of who he was. I have absolutely zero empathetic understanding of how killing an animal can validate someone, but obviously to some people it does. My grandfather was wonderful to me but his fondness for hunting is one of two things I wish had been different about him, and when I read about this lion's slaying by that dentist, it really jerked me back to feelings of a sort I hadn't had since I was a child, and I was surprised at just how much it did affect me. Personally, I think Trevor's got the right idea up there for what should happen to the hunter and his guides in this case.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/why-killing-a-lion-is-the-most-cowardly-thing-you-can-do#.wkG6OmELqm (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/why-killing-a-lion-is-the-most-cowardly-thing-you-can-do#.wkG6OmELqm)

Why Killing A Lion Is The Most Cowardly Thing You Can Do

The guy said that he didn't know that Cecil was  a beloved animal. I call BS on that, since I think hunters are supposed to know which animals to hunt is okay and not okay.

He also said he did not realise it had a radio collar on until after the lion was 'taken'.

I'm thinking it is very possible they used the gps in the collar to locate the lion in the first place.  But that is pure speculation on my part.

For me the capper to the whole scenario is that he shot the lion with an arrow, failed to kill it and then took 40 hours to track it down and give the wounded lion the coup de grace with a gun.  Can you imagine living with an arrow from what was supposed to be a kill shot lodged in you for 40 hours?  Torture, much?

GOOD hunters should be upset with him.  Clearly he stinks at it.  I won't speculate on how much he stinks at being a human being, though I strongly suspect he's not so good at that, either.

Jimmy Kimmel said it all, and very well:
http://youtu.be/_LzXpE1mjqA (http://youtu.be/_LzXpE1mjqA)

I think the outrage does exceed the crime a bit in this case.

A hunter shot an animal.  It's not the end of the world.

It's worth noting that the animal in question was an apex predator that would have just as soon eaten any of the college girls posting outraged memes over his fate as he would a gazelle.

The guy did something illegal and wrong.  The pointlessness of it all just makes it all that much harder to take.

The hunter also indirectly will have caused the deaths of all this lion's current crop of cubs.  That's what happens when a new male takes over: kills all the existing cubs.

Under the circumstances, this particular lion should not have been at risk of being killed by a human.


The lion was somewhat acclimated to humans being near him, not 'tame' by any means, but he would not necessarily been as wary as he should have been.  Then they shone a spotlight on him so the hunter could see him to shoot him.  There's fair for you - blind the animal with lights and take your shot.  Yup that guy was really in maximum danger there.  I wonder if he 'jacklights' deer when he is at home.

I really do hope, Indy, that you are not trying to imply the hunter killed the lion in self defence?  This particular lion was by all accounts considered very "well behaved"  by the sanctuary staff and was popular with the visitors as a result.  Certainly it might be natural for a lion to prey upon humans - that is, any that were foolish enough to present themselves as prey.  I don't think anyone expects a wild predator to be a big stuffed toy.  Even little airheaded girlies who are crying about the lion being killed.

It is not so much that a lion has died; it is how this act and attitudes about it (and involved in it) reflect the current state of human behaviour and ethics.

Are you sure "it's not the end of the world"?  It was CECIL the Lion's nature to be an "apex predator".  It is apparently OUR nature to use our superior intellect and culture to build lots of things, including killing machines.  
Part of the outrage is also the skinning and beheading of the animal.  The head has been claimed by Zimbabwean authorities.  
CECIL the Lion has become iconic.  The mere fact that so many people care bodes well for our future.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11772528/Cecil-the-lions-head-handed-over-to-police.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11772528/Cecil-the-lions-head-handed-over-to-police.html)

Imagine if the Planned Parenthood video from a fortnight ago had generated this much collective outrage.

That video, however, is suspect.  If there is truth to that story, it is disgusting and must be stopped.  I do think that many people are walking around with cadaver skin in their bodies after surgery and may not know it. 

We live in a world full of horror and dread.  Your avatar has long been that beautiful tiger.  The destruction of the natural world is merely symptomatic of our world's ills.  This story about CECIL is embarrassing particularly for Americans.   We're angry. 

http://news.yahoo.com/minnesota-man-killed-lion-keeps-low-profile-amid-055219642.html# (http://news.yahoo.com/minnesota-man-killed-lion-keeps-low-profile-amid-055219642.html#)

He also hunted him with a bow and arrow and tracked him for 40 hours. a slow miserable death.


yeah it's just us outraged college girls who are mad. and none of us know what a lion is

Something's been bugging me, did this guy have a convicted of poaching? Also, please don't go after his family, they probably want to distance themselves after this
However, these two have no excuse:
(http://i.imgur.com/ZVhp4wc.jpg)

In related news, this lady went full stalker mode and tweeted out the dentist' number.
(http://i.imgur.com/EulN5LT.jpg)
Ofcourse she took it down, but now a bloodthirsty mob wants to kill him to avenge Cecil's murder. I say seems legit to the last part.

El Misfit, the American (I assume that is who you are asking about?) killed a black bear outside of his permit zone - forty miles outside of it - and lied to the officer who caught him by saying he had shot the bear within the area named on his permit.  He was on probation for one year for that offense.

With a conviction like that on his record, he shouldn't have ever been issued a hunting license again.
It's a sad story and the actions of all concerned were unsavory. :bluesad:


But I still think it has become the nature of our society to overreact to everything.
Whether it's the Confederate flag, or Cecil the Lion, or whatever else is the cause of the moment -  everybody jumps all over it, gets totally invested in it, then forgets all about it when the next story of the week comes along.

Perhaps.  I believe you love the natural world, and much of this story is sentimental.  Yet, it remains powerful.  Why? 
Indy... are you callous?  Get out of the "news" and look at the story.  Can you not understand that CECIL matters?  Now.  Because he is dead.  You and I will be long dead but CECIL will be remembered long after. 
And he was just a frickin' lion. 
...Why? 
Don't spout. 
Think. 
Feel. 

I think ER is right.
Had Dr Walter Palmer been some kind of high profile leftist, the circle jerks would be stumbling over themselves to excuse this guy & downplay the severity of this PARTICULAR animal's death.

Copenhagen Zoo, anybody?

http://youtu.be/AZn9ghG9nRw (http://youtu.be/AZn9ghG9nRw)

I just signed the extradition petition on Whitehouse.gov. If he is extradited and convicted in Zimbabwe, I hope he enjoys the comforts of Chikirubi Jail.  :buggedout: :buggedout:

Oy, Mamma Mia.............  :buggedout:

No, I'm with you 100%, the dentist is clearly a dick, was unethical, and probably broke the law in doling out a horrible death to the beast. Screw the man. Let him go to jail. I just find the dichotomy of reaction interestingly revealing in the way it seems to sum most people up into two camps. The "taking" (what a puke-worthy word here) of one lion puts people marching in the streets, but the dismemberment of countless fetuses is defended by many of those same individuals loudly condemning the killing of a single animal. I do question the priorities there. Me, I was angered and saddened by the slaying of this noble lion, and I was disgusted and outraged by the other video I mentioned. (All of which, unedited and uncensored, by the way, is available online, if you think the presentation of media outlets have made it suspect.)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLMk1_GWcAERrsu.jpg)

I would not be so sure about that 'unedited and uncensored' part, if it is the video I have seen discussed.  Don't believe everything you see - or are told.

Regardless of how you feel about the death of a lion, this lady, in my humble but correct opinion, is a total whackjob!

On the one hand I'd agree she does sound a bit of a nutter, but on the other hand I've heard stuff that makes what she is saying sound completely sane compared to what more established religions say so I'm not going to go judging her.

You know, it's the darndest thing, Cecil spoke to me too! He said to tell everybody he never liked being called "Cecil" when his actual name is "Roarmeister von Blackmane, Mate of Many Lionesses, Slaughterer of Scores Rivals Males' Infant Cubs". (He's especially proud of that last part of his name.) He wants it known he's tired of this publicity, and that one day in the afterlife he plans to ambush and serially devour the hypertensive jackass who shot him. He says he's in a better place, eating fat zebras, rogering lioness groupies 'round the clock, and pooping on fresh grass up in heaven. He asks that in his memory money be constructively donated to the International Red Cross, which is trying to save the lives of Syrian children, more than 100,000 of whom have been slain in their nation's war between ISIS and its government. He says to tell everyone that since he's dead he can't be helped, but those children who are still alive can be, and thinks aiding them is a better use of any feelings of outrage. He wants his privacy back and thanks everyone for their understanding in this difficult time.

Cecil the Lion's 'Brother,' Jericho, Killed by Hunter, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force Says 

http://gma.yahoo.com/cecil-lions-brother-jericho-shot-killed-says-zimbabwe-184520985--abc-news-topstories.html (http://gma.yahoo.com/cecil-lions-brother-jericho-shot-killed-says-zimbabwe-184520985--abc-news-topstories.html) 

 A lion named Jericho who is known as Cecil the Lion's brother, was shot and killed today, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said, in the wake of the country calling for the extradition of the American dentist who admitted killing Cecil in early July.

However, a researcher who monitors the lion with a GPS tag told Reuters that Jericho "looks alive and well."

http://gma.yahoo.com/cecil-lions-brother-jericho-shot-killed-says-zimbabwe-184520985--abc-news-topstories.html (http://gma.yahoo.com/cecil-lions-brother-jericho-shot-killed-says-zimbabwe-184520985--abc-news-topstories.html)

Someone needs to get their story straight!

 
After Cecil, second lion poached by foreign tourist in Zimbabwe
...Reports that a brother of Cecil had been killed on Saturday were untrue, a field researcher said, but the news rekindled the fury of animal lovers that was sparked by American dentist Walter Palmer who admitted hunting down the lion on July 1.
A source at the national parks agency, who is not authorized to speak to the media, said a foreign hunter, whose nationality he did not disclose, killed the second lion illegally on July 3. The hunter had since left Zimbabwe, but police had recovered the lion's head and carcass...

http://news.yahoo.com/cecil-second-lion-poached-foreign-tourist-zimbabwe-parks-075427998.html (http://news.yahoo.com/cecil-second-lion-poached-foreign-tourist-zimbabwe-parks-075427998.html)


http://news.yahoo.com/cecil-second-lion-poached-foreign-tourist-zimbabwe-parks-075427998.html (http://news.yahoo.com/cecil-second-lion-poached-foreign-tourist-zimbabwe-parks-075427998.html)

http://news.yahoo.com/minnesota-man-killed-lion-keeps-low-profile-amid-055219642.html# (http://news.yahoo.com/minnesota-man-killed-lion-keeps-low-profile-amid-055219642.html#)

Zimbabweans baffled by foreign concern for killed lion

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — While the death of a protected lion in Zimbabwe has caused outrage in the United States — much of it centered on the Minnesota dentist who killed the animal — most in Zimbabwe expressed a degree of bafflement over the concern.

Outside Zimbabwe's environmental and activist circles, however, the reaction been muted.

"It's so cruel, but I don't understand the whole fuss, there are so many pressing issues in Zimbabwe — we have water shortages, no electricity and no jobs — yet people are making noise about a lion?" said Eunice Vhunise, a Harare resident. "I saw Cecil once when I visited the game park. I will probably miss him. But honestly the attention is just too much."

An economic meltdown over the last few years has closed many companies and left two thirds of the population working in the informal economy while battling acute water and electricity shortages.

Most people questioned in downtown Harare hadn't actually heard about the lion and said they were too busy trying to a living to care about it.

We truly live in the age of selective outrage.

Well that makes the whole incident perfectly alright then.  Carry on.

I am reminded of an incident in the early 1990s, in which a mountain lion in a California park killed a female jogger, and the animal was then killed by park rangers. It was found the dead animal had left behind offspring, and there was a massive public outpouring of sympathy for its orphans. Quietly it was also pointed out that the woman the animal killed had been a single mother of a small daughter. While the predatory cat's young were soon to receive an outpouring of public sympathy, and financial contributions were made to the shelter caring for them, the media registered virtually no mention of the orphaned little girl, and a fund established for her among local banks got next to no donations. History repeats itself, of course, and a dead lion (a hunter killed by a smarter hunter) is stirring the pocketbooks of those in the First World who are truly enjoying their moment of retroactive outrage, while in the Third World country that set aside space for that lion to exist in the first place, people are in desperate trouble, and yet there's no outcry on their behalf. I think this incident, like the one from a generation ago, has exposed a lack of proper priorities in a great many people. Next year who will even remember a dead lion? Something new will come up to stir collective feel-good outrage.

I seem to recall this one.
Then, a certain talk show host got on the case, & things turned around very quickly.

That space set aside for those lions to exist has a dual purpose: it not only protects the local wildlife, by turning those animals into a tourist attraction it also supports the tourist industry which many countries in Africa hope will be a key contributor to the growth of local economies - and employment.

So those desperate people will have more jobs available to them.
So foreign money will come into their area.
So others can become familiar with their conditions and perhaps be moved to do something constructive.

There is a bigger picture.  There are more lasting ways to help than handing out a few fish.

Agreed. I believe in hunting for food and clothing, and using managed populations of beasties for that purpose. Deer in Ohio, for one.
 
Just keep things in context, however. It's a lion. An animal. And what is happening, due to the self inflicted wounds caused by, and too our own species, has my first priority of concern. What happens to animals is more often the result of the rotten thinking we inflict on each other.
The selfish mind is the destructive mind.

You're very right, Newt, without populations of game animals there for sport hunting (again, I don't understand its appeal) many rural communities around the world, especially in Africa, wouldn't be able to exist.

RIP, dead lion, and if the dentist truly shot him illegally---innocent until proven guilty---major bad karma from me to him.

Now here's to hoping people put at least as much emotion into pondering the suffering of their fellow man as they have a lion, huh?

Anyone wanting to donate to help underage Mid-East war refugees:

https://www.unicefusa.org/donate/help-syrian-children?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Syria&utm_term=donate%20to%20syria (https://www.unicefusa.org/donate/help-syrian-children?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Syria&utm_term=donate%20to%20syria)

Pace, everybody!

Logically, crimes against humans are worse, of course, but people are simply jaded to man's-inhumanity-to-man. We expect it, it's just background noise. Killing an innocent animal for no good reason is a novel crime, and it is symbolic of the worst, most selfish aspects of human nature. Why spread our evil outside our own species?

I heard that some psychic talked to Cecil and the lion said; "I'm at a better place now."

Ok, I think the psychic is a nut because I have doubts that the lion would know what is a better place at the first place... PS, this psychic charges 75 dollars for 15 minutes... [wow I'm the wrong business because people are taking this psychic seriously]  

Hmmmmmmmmm for 2 dollars I could tell the people what the lion really thinks. (But I'll wait until somebody paid me the 2 dollars before I talk)

Well,here's another way to look at it...





Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me.

So sorry about Cecil.

Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe?

Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.

My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.

Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”?

In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.
Photo
Protesters have called for the death of the hunter who killed Cecil the lion. Credit Eric Miller/Reuters

When I was 9 years old, a solitary lion prowled villages near my home. After it killed a few chickens, some goats and finally a cow, we were warned to walk to school in groups and stop playing outside. My sisters no longer went alone to the river to collect water or wash dishes; my mother waited for my father and older brothers, armed with machetes, axes and spears, to escort her into the bush to collect firewood.

A week later, my mother gathered me with nine of my siblings to explain that her uncle had been attacked but escaped with nothing more than an injured leg. The lion sucked the life out of the village: No one socialized by fires at night; no one dared stroll over to a neighbor’s homestead.

When the lion was finally killed, no one cared whether its murderer was a local person or a white trophy hunter, whether it was poached or killed legally. We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm.

Recently, a 14-year-old boy in a village not far from mine wasn’t so lucky. Sleeping in his family’s fields, as villagers do to protect crops from the hippos, buffalo and elephants that trample them, he was mauled by a lion and died.

The killing of Cecil hasn’t garnered much more sympathy from urban Zimbabweans, although they live with no such danger. Few have ever seen a lion, since game drives are a luxury residents of a country with an average monthly income below $150 cannot afford.
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Recent Comments
Rick Soll 2 days ago

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Before colonialists like Cecil Rhodes, Africans were stone age people and just another part of the ecosystem. Big game, including but not...
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It's becoming more well-known how the creation of the natural parks in many African countries went hand-in-hand with colonization and the...

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Don’t misunderstand me: For Zimbabweans, wild animals have near-mystical significance. We belong to clans, and each clan claims an animal totem as its mythological ancestor. Mine is Nzou, elephant, and by tradition, I can’t eat elephant meat; it would be akin to eating a relative’s flesh. But our respect for these animals has never kept us from hunting them or allowing them to be hunted. (I’m familiar with dangerous animals; I lost my right leg to a snakebite when I was 11.)

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The American tendency to romanticize animals that have been given actual names and to jump onto a hashtag train has turned an ordinary situation — there were 800 lions legally killed over a decade by well-heeled foreigners who shelled out serious money to prove their prowess — into what seems to my Zimbabwean eyes an absurdist circus.

PETA is calling for the hunter to be hanged. Zimbabwean politicians are accusing the United States of staging Cecil’s killing as a “ploy” to make our country look bad. And Americans who can’t find Zimbabwe on a map are applauding the nation’s demand for the extradition of the dentist, unaware that a baby elephant was reportedly slaughtered for our president’s most recent birthday banquet.

We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people.

Don’t tell us what to do with our animals when you allowed your own mountain lions to be hunted to near extinction in the eastern United States. Don’t bemoan the clear-cutting of our forests when you turned yours into concrete jungles.

And please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger.

Goodwell Nzou is a doctoral student in molecular and cellular biosciences at Wake Forest University.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 5, 2015, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions. Today's Paper|Subscrib

That is a different perspective, and one worth hearing.