@poetsheart you speak the truth. There’s never a convenient time to bring it up, but there is a collective that back certain stories more feverishly than others when it deals with animals. I remember some picture on Tumblr, while not PC, said something about “group of people” not truly backing an event until it involves themselves or animals. It’s cringe inducing but there’s truth in it. I’ve seen it even happen on CC.
Yes, people are capable of caring about a multitude of things with varying passion. I don’t believe it’s a bad thing to state an observation.
As horribly, horribly, unimaginably tragic as Sandy Hook and other mass murders are, and the taking of any innocent life is unimaginably horrific, the perpetrators in the Va Tech, Aurora, Tuscon, Lafayette Sandy Hook, etc massacres had mental health issues. That does not excuse their actions, but they differ from a wealthy dentist possibly bribing employees to illegally lure and kill an endangered animal for sport.
I don’t think it’s true that the killing of this lion has engendered more outrage than the mass murder of human beings, from Newtown to Aurora to Virginia Tech and all the others. It just happens to the be white-hot outrage of the moment…it too will die down amid the impotence to do anything about it but rant and rave.
On the scale of senseless, intentional and cold-blooded killings, I’d put Dr. Scumbag closer to white cops killing unarmed black men and less close to the Adam Lanze type. Dr. Scumbag and white killer-cops made choices.
There have been recent awful hunting trophies displayed online that have unleashed a lot of outrage. Some woman who killed a giraffe recently and posed with it, I remember. Just awful. I think there is a special place for lions though, especially male lions, as they have been anthropomorphized in our culture for centuries.
^^As the parent of Lion King fans, I agree. The black rhino hunt upset me big time. I just hope this one creates enough outrage that something will be done about these killings of endangered, innocent animals.
LasMa, I know it’s entirely possible to be upset over more than one outrageous act at the same time. I’m not solely speaking about the responses of CC denizens. I’m thinking of the many other responses I’m seen posted elsewhere over this incident, and of the calls for Palmer to experience death in the most graphic ways, supposedly commensurate with the death he delt Cecil the lion. You never read of the desire to see mass shooters tortured or shoot to death. People are upset over the sufffering Cecil must have experienced prior to his death (which must have indeed been horrendous). But no one speaks of the suffering victims of massacres must have experienced prior to death, the adject terror, the continuing physical and emotional trauma of the survivors (unless the perpetrators were genuine “Islamic terrorists”, in which case, we should go invade Iran, Iraq, Syria, et. Al.)
Mass shootings in this country merely serve as the starting bell for the latest round of the political grudge match between those calling for tighter gun control and ardent 2nd Amendment rights advocates. If we really thought in terms of the human toll of such shootings, perhaps we could muster the collective will to come together and make a good faith effort to prevent such shootings from happening. But we don’t. So the point is moot.
I think part of that is our natural unwillingness to really go deeply into that pain and fear. It is easier to project into an animal’s fear and pain somehow. It is a bit distant for us. To really imagine the horror of a human torturing and shooting is something that I know my brain shies away from.
I may think about the terror of first graders shot down with an assault rifle and the agonizing grief of their parents…but I believe I did express my horror at the time. But then nothing changes, as it doesn’t with every mass shooting.
Similar with the repeated killings of unarmed black men and women. I do feel for their families, mothers, fathers, children and I’ve expressed outrage in the outlets I have available to me. I was very moved by Sandra Bland’s story-plucked out of her daily life and thrown into jail for no reason. I can’t fathom why she felt driven to suicide …and I do blame and have railed against the arresting officer. But what can one say after its affirmed she took her own life…just to hope the officer is fired for hotheadedness and false arrest. That story has attracted a lot of outrage, I would say.
These are the stories that you need the very beautiful things in life to counter…and one of the beautiful things is the magnificence of wild animals in their habitats. Having an example of that rubbed out by a self-absorbed egomaniac elicits its own outrage I think.
While I am enraged by this story, I am more so about the atrocities that have been taking place against human fetuses at the hands of PP employees …but lions are certainly getting more coverage in the last few days from the MSM
“Oh, killing a lion with a name makes it MUCH worse–in terms of PR. It gets people’s attention.”
Apparently so. I’m wondering what is so different from what this guy did, than what other big game hunters do? Is it because social media got ahold of it? Is it just because this lion has a name? What is so much worse that this guy did, that he deserves to die, in all the terrible ways that have been described on this thread, than other big game hunters?
The cubs will probably be killed. So does anyone know what has happened to any of the other cubs of lions that have been killed? The guides lured the animal out, is that the first time this has ever happened? Probably the dentist had no idea of what area they were in, it’s not like he’s particularly familiar with it. Should he be tortured and murdered for that? Really, it doesn’t sound like he has done more than any other big game hunter, except for killed an animal with a name.
Don’t hear these kind of violent wishes about death from the people here about cop killers. Or people who kill or molest children, or kill their wives. Or any other big game hunters.
Just this one man, because the lion had a name? What if the lion was referred to as specimen 482A? I’ll bet we wouldn’t even be talking about this now.
I don’t think that’s true. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the king of Spain gave up the throne last year in large part due to an outcry when he shot an elephant during a safari. That elephant didn’t have a name. Fact is, many people find big game hunting repellent.
In the case of the dentist, the outrage is based on how this lion was killed – lured from its protected habitat, then shot with a bow and arrow and only later killed with a gun. It was a brutal – and completely illegal – killing.
@busdriver11 , several things make this different. First, it was clearly illegal. (It’s unbelievable to me that it would EVER be legal to kill an endangered animal, but apparently it is.) Second, through a confluence of circumstances, including the lion’s popularity, it has come to the world’s attention that rich Americans can pay to have locals set up an easy kill of a magnificent wild animal. Maybe the world should have had this at the top of its list of outrageous things before, but there are just so many things vying for that honor.
Now that it’s at the top of the outrageous list for a short time, it has made people stop and think. What kind of person gets so much pleasure from killing another living creature, a creature which wants to live, and has done them no harm? Jimmy Kimmel speaks for a lot of us: “How is this fun?” I really do not understand.
And then there’s the particularly awful details of this case. I read the statement of the head of some American “sporting” group and he said that what happened in this case was not a hunt. In a hunt, the animal is supposed to have a chance of surviving, which Cecil did not, being a trusting sort. (And I’m not buying for a second that Dr. Pondscum didn’t know what was going on. Why did he think the lion was being lured to a specific spot?) And I think that’s another reason this has caught the public’s attention. Dr. Pondscum did not kill the lion in an honorable test. He evidently just wanted a quick kill, so the lion was tricked, and then slaughtered, and slaughtered very badly indeed. Even by the standards of the despicable “sport” of pleasure-hunting, this incident was vile.
Hopefully something will be done. I think that barring the import of “trophies” will go a long way toward reducing demand for this kind of “sport,” at least for African animals.
The fact that it was a famous lion has a lot to do with the worldwide outcry but it really is the whole combination of elements of the story. If Cecil had somehow wandered away from the sanctuary area on his own and then was shot by a hunter with a permit, there would have been anguish still, but not the level of hate and vituperation that has been rightfully heaped on Palmer. If the hunter also had shot the animal with a gun, providing a quick and clean death, there might not have been the level of outrage, again if the lion had not been lured.
But the combined elements are that the hired hunters went into the sanctuary and found the lion (male, magnificent mane) they were looking for and then lured it out with bait. How in the world could Palmer, who was there to shoot the animal with a bow and arrow shortly after it came onto private land, not know what was going on. The hired hunter somehow hid the bait truck? His statement is self-serving and not particularly believable considering he has done something similar before.
A lion who is popular tourist attraction, collared and living on a protected sanctuary is scouted, targeted, lured out of his protected area and then shot with an arrow for the pleasure of the hunter who lets him suffer for the next 40 hours before tracking him down to finish him with a shot. He is so “sorry” about finding that he is collared that rather than return the lion intact to the reserve with all due apologies, he goes ahead and decapitates and skins him. The only reason that he didn’t get to keep the trophy is that it was intercepted at a taxidermist and taken for evidence.
I am not one who says he should be treated as the lion was — that’s just hyperbole for the sake of blowing off steam. But he should be sent back to Zimbabwe to stand trial for poaching and take the consequences if found guilty.
From what I heard on the radio today, Palmer’s professional guide owns the hunting lands immediately adjacent to the park, which is where they were hunting at night. Presumably if it were daytime, they would have seen the lion’s collar before targeting it.
“In the case of the dentist, the outrage is based on how this lion was killed – lured from its protected habitat, then shot with a bow and arrow and only later killed with a gun. It was a brutal – and completely illegal – killing.”
And all other big game kills are different?
Lured from its protected habitat. Is anyone calling for the people that knew what they were doing, the guides who lured the lion out to be decapitated, shot, skinned, turned over to ISIS? I wonder how many times they had done this, THEY were the people who knew exactly what they were doing, and have probably done it many, many times.
Is it so much different if a lion is shot inside the park or outside the park? If it steps one foot outside the park, then it's just fine to kill it?
Is the method of execution that important? Do you think he knew that the animal was going to suffer so long after he shot it with the bow and arrow? Are dentists omnipotent?
It it's legal, is it then fine?
Look, I am pretty much against killing anything for sport. Even squirrels. I really think animals should only be killed for meat, and I could easily become a vegetarian if I thought much further about it. I hate animals, any animals, being in pain or killed, particularly for the fun of it. I generally put spiders outside instead of killing them (unless my dogs get to them first).
However, I don’t see this as being significantly different that any big game kills. I don’t think this should be legal in any country, in any circumstance (unless people are in danger). But then again, I’m not emperor of the world.
I don’t know about Zimbabwe, but in South Africa the owners of the hunting game preserves own the animals on them. They also breed and raise many of the animals that live there, including lions.