[C8]

You would have to be on a safari to not notice the recent upROAR about Cecil the Lion on the internet. First, let me say that I would never do what the dentist did or engage in hunts- also, he seems like a guy i wouldn't want to hang with.

But lets hold on here: he has become public enemy number 1, is being attacked online, has closed his business, has had his personal address tweeted, has been removed from associations- and is now being investigated by the White House!

The reaction is frankly more disturbing than what he did.

Yes, he killed a lion. Guess what, the same people condemning him eat burgers and sausages everyday and support a factory killing machine that puts the Nazi concentration camps to shame. Are those cute calves, pigs, sheep, etc. not also deserving of life?

The same people shaming him have defenseless animals slaughtered to feed to their pet carnivore cats and dogs.

The lion the dentist killed has slaughtered countless animals and would kill human babies if given a chance.

Is the internet making us more hypocritical? More intolerant? More like a mob? Is it amplifying the dark side of human beings? If so, where does that take us?

[Lore]

I believe there is a big difference between hunting for a trophy head of an animal and killing and eating domesticated livestock raised for food. Such activity serves no useful purpose for human survival.

On a planet where we are threatening the extinction of most every living thing on it. We should have little tolerance for this so called sport.

The bigger picture needs to extend to illegal poaching and habitat destruction. Our large vertebrates are dissiapearing and along with them the many broken links of an already tattered chain to our bio diverse life support system.

The lion only does what nature dictates. People have a choice and therefore a responsibility.

[Pops]

I was thinking about this too although I'm not sure if the topic is hunting lions or internet shaming. I don't know the facts of the case, don't know whether lions benefit from hunting, I don't even know he the guy was legal or not.
But this one guy sure got ripped up.
I don't know him, he may be a dick and deserving or again maybe he doesn't.

My point is, I don't know. I'm guessing 99% of the people out to punish him don't know either, they are just enjoying wallowing in an orgy of outrage.

Getting pretty common.

[ROCKMAN]

Pops – I think it goes well beyond the facts of the case. Basically one’s personal feelings about killing animals. Even down to what animals are killed. Some folks outraged at the killing of any lion wouldn’t give a second thought to someone killing a skunk. So some living creatures have a right to life greater than others? Of course there’s a big difference when it comes to endangered species but as I understand it lions don’t fit into that category. More important is the point Lore brought up about habitat loss.

I’ve hunted and killed a lot of different critters that I ate. OTOH I’ve never hunted predators or vermin unless they posed a problem. But for me that isn’t a question of right or wrong but personal preference. From what I understand most if not all of the African govts not only allow but promote and profit from big game hunts. Again not an issue of right or wrong for me but a choice those govt’s make. As far as the facts go it does appear the hunter had been given the right by the govt to hunt a lion. The problem was that his guides led him to shot a lion that wasn’t on the govt’s approved “hit list”. In that sense he would not have intentionally done anything illegal.

The unfortuante (and very predictable) fact is the public outrage against the hunter especially via the Internet. It would be interesting to compare the number of posts this last week outraged over the lion’s killing with the number of posts outraged over the children killed in Syria in the last week. In fact, forget counting the Syrian outraged post about the children and just count the number of posts/MSM articles that even mention their deaths. But, hey, there’s a lot more children left in the world then there are lions so I guess it makes sense.

[SeaGypsy]

Related side topic. Google Adam Goodes. He's an Aussie footballer raised by a staunch aboriginal single mum who was stolen from her racially mixed parents as an infant.

Recently this million dollar a year superstar Aussie rules player has been subjected to growing booing & taunts every time he gets near the ball. The controversy is based on a collection of not well taken positions on racial issues in Australia & on the field. In the last few days Adam has taken leave, possibly retiring permanently, his career ending in a quagmire of internet & news gossip.

People who never listened to his speech accepting the Australian of the year award, claim in the millions to have been called racist in this speech, which is drawing a very long bow on a very good speech. People who heard about him 'having a 13 year old girl singled out & evicted from a match for calling him an ape', did not know that Adam was trying to talk to the girl with her mum, not have her evicted. People were offended by a 'aboriginal war dance' Adam performed in response to continuous booing a few weeks ago. The 'war dance' was designed specifically for an Australian response to the Maori Haka; on the sports field.

All this ignorance mixed up with general dislike of upity aboriginals turns into 50 million total bs posts all around the media top to bottom, the PM had to make a statement today & poor old Goodesy, one of the top players of all time, hides in his room.

Strange days indeed

[Withnail]

People who heard about him 'having a 13 year old girl singled out & evicted from a match for calling him an ape', did not know that Adam was trying to talk to the girl with her mum, not have her evicted. People were offended by a 'aboriginal war dance' Adam performed in response to continuous booing a few weeks ago. The 'war dance' was designed specifically for an Australian response to the Maori Haka; on the sports field.

She would have been prosecuted in the UK for hate speech and permanently banned from future matches.

[SeaGypsy]

Yeah maybe but it's more OK to get around with a gang calling to behead those who insult the prophet than it is to call for investigation of the banking system or pedophile rings in the top tier of the establishment.

(Bread & circuses again )

[Lore]

You be the judge. This was an animal lured off the reserve. After he was wounded and finally killed the following day, the one guide reported that the dentist took the tracking collar off and hid it in a tree when they found it on the lion. The next day the guy asked for permission to hunt an elephant.

The elephant population has shrunk by 64% in the last 10 years. Lions have gone from 200,000 to less than 30,000 in about the same amount of time. If this guy really wanted to be a hunter and conservationist, he should have taken a camera to shoot it with rather than a bow and spent the money to preserve the species. However, I kind of doubt corrupt countries like Zimbabwe are likely to funnel much money towards preservation.

What's sad is that it takes an event like this to raise any kind of public ire. I also agree though that the outrage should be ongoing and directed more at poaching and habitat destruction which has the most impact.

[Withnail]

You be the judge. This was an animal lured off the reserve. After he was wounded and finally killed the following day, the one guide reported that the dentist took the tracking collar off and hid it in a tree when they found it on the lion. The next day the guy asked for permission to hunt an elephant.

Extradite, prosecute and jail him.

[Ibon]

Unfortunately when the collective is ripe on an issue there will be disproportionate attention given to a single event that will be blown way up and the individual implicated will be singled out. Bad timing. But also an opportunity here. If the man who killed the lion wants a pathway out of this shaming then he will go inward, question in the deepest sense the source of this desire to hunt top predators as trophy, experience a profound change of heart, admit this openly, start the pathway of redemption by dedicating the remainder of his life preserving remaining habitat, giving speaches etc. This opportunity exists. He can take this public shaming and turn it toward an ultimate good of conservation. That is a choice that lies before him. Otherwise frankly he thoroughly deserves the shaming.

This shaming may well ripple through the elite community of big game trophy hunters. Perhaps this will give them pause to continue pursuing this. If this guy who killed the lion understand this potential he can spearhead this and ride the wave of public sentiment toward redemption. Then he turns this heinous act into a virtuous outcome. Otherwise frankly he thoroughly deserves the shaming.

Symbols are sometimes more important than the ultimate truth of a single act. In these times of habitat destruction around the planet the symbolism of this act is more important than the actual impact of the incident itself.

[Ibon]

The lion the dentist killed has slaughtered countless animals and would kill human babies if given a chance.

The lion the dentist killed is a top predator, the ecological roll he plays in the African savanna maintains an equilibrium in the ecosystem there so that biodiversity is actually maximized when he controls the population of grazers, his main prey. You are guilty here of the demonization of predators when using the term slaughter and referencing killing human babies.

The same people shaming him have defenseless animals slaughtered to feed to their pet carnivore cats and dogs.

Excellent point.

Is the internet making us more hypocritical?

You accurately mentioned hypocrisy. If you want to examine hypocrisy more deeply then consider this. If we really did have once again predators that would more readily feed on human babies and humans in general native ecosystems would quickly also restore their historical biodiversity. Alas, we have removed our predators from the environment and thus we now reap what we have sowed.

[ritter]

NPR reported the guy was already convicted of illegally killing a bear and he's settled on some sexual assault charges in the past. I suspect he's a turd. If not, he should pay more attention to what is going on around him and be less reliant on guides. Either way, I suspect he knew damn well what he was doing.

[Pops]

Of course you do, that is the nature of the mob.

The other facet of mob rule is that whatever it does is OK, that is tyranny of the majority, or democracy.

That is the reason the framers of the US built a republic and why the word democracy is not found in the constitution.

[C8]

I think the hunter should apologize- donate money to a habitat reserve- and then go on a ONE WEEK meat fast- AND CHALLENGE THE REST OF THE COUNTRY TO DO THE SAME!

should send a message

[Outcast_Searcher]

I believe there is a big difference between hunting for a trophy head of an animal and killing and eating domesticated livestock raised for food. Such activity serves no useful purpose for human survival.

Is it really that different? If the food animals are raised in miserable conditions that we all KNOW are miserable, but tolerate because it is cheaper? (Which we generally do. Even "free range" chickens raised in an industrial "free range" definition are raised in filthy, miserable conditions indeed, as one example).

It's easy to say "that's bad". It's far harder to accept that as a suasage-eater, we are part of the problem.

And no, I don't like trophy hunting. But acting like that's "all bad" but whatever activity takes place for "survival" (actually, convenience and maximizing consumption in most cases) is good or even OK doesn't cut it.

[Lore]

I believe there is a big difference between hunting for a trophy head of an animal and killing and eating domesticated livestock raised for food. Such activity serves no useful purpose for human survival.

Is it really that different? If the food animals are raised in miserable conditions that we all KNOW are miserable, but tolerate because it is cheaper? (Which we generally do. Even "free range" chickens raised in an industrial "free range" definition are raised in filthy, miserable conditions indeed, as one example).

It's easy to say "that's bad". It's far harder to accept that as a suasage-eater, we are part of the problem.

And no, I don't like trophy hunting. But acting like that's "all bad" but whatever activity takes place for "survival" (actually, convenience and maximizing consumption in most cases) is good or even OK doesn't cut it.

Sure it cuts it, because that's our design, but that doesn't condone the mistreatment of any life either raised for consumption, or running wild.

Where we deviate is taking heads for sport.

[onlooker]

Symbols are sometimes more important than the ultimate truth of a single act. In these times of habitat destruction around the planet the symbolism of this act is more important than the actual impact of the incident itself.

This is so true. It is just a bad example. Hunting should be outlawed in the entire planet. How can we be hunting for sport when all large animals are under threat of extinction. Kind of like sharks. Makes me think in a tangential train of thought that we fear sharks so we kill them and so with Lions. Who should fear who? How many sharks have we and are we still killing compared with the sensationalism when a shark happens to take a chunk out of some swimmer. That is hypocrisy. The internet is just a sounding board showing the full gamut of human intelligence, ignorance, compassion and callousness.

[Withnail]

I think the hunter should apologize- donate money to a habitat reserve- and then go on a ONE WEEK meat fast- AND CHALLENGE THE REST OF THE COUNTRY TO DO THE SAME!

should send a message

He needs to be extradited and stand trial. Intentionally luring the lion out of the protected area so it can be killed must surely be a crime.

It's no better than poaching.

Americans need to understand the law applies to them as well as locals in the countries they exploit.

[ritter]

Of course you do, that is the nature of the mob.

The other facet of mob rule is that whatever it does is OK, that is tyranny of the majority, or democracy.

Directed at me? If so, not sure why you think I'm mobbin, bro.

My point was, he's suspect having already been prosecuted for taking one animal trophy illegally (and allegedly a woman as well). From the few meglomaniac thrill seekers I've know, I doubt he's entirely innocent in this event.