So just to clarify, Bay: your position is that killing lions is a good thing?
As I said earlier, there’s a plausible argument that can be made for that position. I’d perhaps have more sympathy for it if lion populations weren’t suffering such a drastic decline—it’s truly not a question of “more animals,” it’s a question of how many fewer. According to the IUCN, the species commonly known as the African lion (Panthera leo) once ranged through all of Africa except the Sahara, into southwest Asia from Anatolia and the Levant into what is now Pakistan and India, and into parts of southern Europe. The European populations are long since extirpated; the Asian population is reduced to a small, isolated, remnant subpopulation in a single protected forest in India; the North African population is locally extirpated; a few survivors persist in West Africa where the species is critically endangered; and the East African population is substantially reduced in numbers and declining rapidly. Lion populations are relatively stable only in a few Southern African countries—South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia—only because the governments there have set aside large areas of lion habitat as national parks, where habitat is protected, the killing of lions is prohibited or strictly controlled, and human-lion contacts are limited or strictly regulated. As a result of all this, the global lion population has shrunk from an estimated 400,000 in the 1940s, to perhaps 70,000 in the 1980s, to somewhere between 16,000 and 32,000 today (estimates vary), with most of the remaining lions in the above-named countries. The IUCN estimates present-day lion range is approximately 8% of the species’ historic range. So this is truly a species on the brink.
Given that context, even if you buy the argument that a well-managed hunt can actually be a valuable conservation tool as the governments of the 4 Southern African nations claim, doing what Palmer and his accomplices did is absolutely inexcusable. A hunt can be well managed only if the hunters follow the rules and obtain the proper permits, and the remaining protected lion habitat has to be inviolable ground. By entering the national park to lure Cecil out, Palmer essentially hunted in the national park, where for good reason hunting is prohibited. The researcher who had recorded Cecil’s every move for 9 years says there’s simply no way an experienced big game hunter like Palmer wouldn’t know that he was inside the national park, nor is it plausible that he was unaware that hunting was prohibited there. That’s why the government of Zimbabwe views this as a serious crime, because it is basically a frontal attack on Zimbabwe’s lion conservation program.
Critics of the “hunt for conservation” rationale point out that the revenue African governments receive from big game hunting pales in comparison with the revenue generated by the spending of people who travel to these national parks just to observe and photograph wildlife. Cecil, in particular, was worth far more to Zimbabwe alive than dead. Moreover, it’s not clear how much of the hunting revenue is actually going to conservation purposes, rather than being diverted to other government projects or lining the pockets of bureaucrats and corrupt officials. Granting big game hunting permits to wealthy, predominantly white American and European hunters also stirs resentment in the local population by perpetuating or re-creating the colonialist racial caste system, and it creates a space in which locals may be tempted to join in aiding poachers so as to get their cut of the substantial sums of money being thrown around. At best, “hunt to conserve” sends a mixed message—it’s apparently alright to kill lions, and both the government and a few specially licensed guides and outfitters claim the right to profit handsomely from it; but if you’re not one of the favored few, lion hunting and the business of supporting lion hunting are strictly prohibited. That doesn’t sit too well with those who are cut out of the action, many of whom may not feel a great deal of allegiance to their government and its rules to begin with. It also sends a mixed message to big game hunters worldwide; the governments are effectively saying, “We not only condone but actually welcome the killing of lions, but only if you deal with us on monopoly terms.” Those who don’t get the handful of legal permits may then be tempted to skirt the rules and make their own private arrangements; it seems likely to me that’s what Palmer did. On top of that, many, perhaps most African governments don’t have the capacity to police and enforce such a regime effectively. The predictable result is a high level of poaching, ineffective enforcement of anti-poaching laws, and ineffective conservation programs. And surprise, surprise, that has been the actual result on the ground most places “hunt to conserve” has been tried.