Cecil the lion

[Scott]

Cecil was not a person!!!

\me sits back with popcorn.

[Lux12]

Cecil was not a person!!!

\me sits back with popcorn.

So? Call me heartless but that Lion's life had more value than the jerk who shot him. It was a pointless killing that served no purpose beyond the satisfaction of some well to do asshole's ego and only served to help throw the ecosystem out of whack. The world could stand to lose quite a few humans. If we screw the Earth over, we screw ourselves ultimately. I also wonder if one would be so callous if their pet dog, cat, or other beloved animal companion was killed? To be honest I value the lives of dogs and lions before any human. Humans do things out of pure malice and  shallow spite, a lion or a dog just do what they're supposed to do. Believe it or not, that lion had a place in the hearts of a fair number of humans so it does effect humans in that way. If you ask me, poaching doesn't carry a steep enough penalty. Taking a life, no matter what the reason is something that should be taken lightly, for it carries some of the most severe consequences.

To put it bluntly, killing an endangered species for some shallow affirmation of a socially constructed sense of machismo is just disgusting. I despise trophy hunters for that reason. Killing just for the sake of killing and to prove their delusions of what manhood is. They're no better than a bunch of frat dudebro fuckboys playing at being mature, self assured, and authentic while being shallow, hollow people.

[Beguile's Mistress]

I may not agree with people who enjoy big game hunting and I do understand how it does offend man but as long as the man didn't knowingly break any laws he should be left alone.  The lion was lured with bait by the guides in order to provide the hunt experience they promoted.  He was half a mile from the preserve and the hunter did not know the animal was tagged or wore a collar.

Promote anti-hunting laws if you wish to stop big game hunting but I don't understand vilifying a person who did nothing against the law.

[Lux12]

I may not agree with people who enjoy big game hunting and I do understand how it does offend man but as long as the man didn't knowingly break any laws he should be left alone.  The lion was lured with bait by the guides in order to provide the hunt experience they promoted.  He was half a mile from the preserve and the hunter did not know the animal was tagged or wore a collar.

Promote anti-hunting laws if you wish to stop big game hunting but I don't understand vilifying a person who did nothing against the law.

He knew. If he was using a bow and if he got close enough to finish Cecil off, he would have seen it. Furthermore, he knew what he was doing enlisting people to lure a protected animal off a preserve. He knowingly did it. I also know several people who have gone hunting or at least shooting and could tell you there are a number of holes in that mans story. This waste of flesh should be charged for hunting an endangered species alone. This loathsome fool would have had to get close enough to see a tag or collar to do what came after too. So the fact that he didn't speak up until now makes him highly suspect. To me, he is no better than a common murderer.

[Beguile's Mistress]

You could be right.  But then again neither of us were there so we can only speculate and that is never any good.

[Blythe]

I don't like big game hunting. I also see Cecil's death as a tragedy; he was a beautiful lion.

A lot of what I've read shows Palmer in a pretty damning light. He's got a previous hunting incident involving a black bear that he shot outside of a designated zone in Wisconsin, lied about where he shot it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which he pleaded guilty to in 2008. He got a year of probation and something like a $3,000 fine.

I've read that Cecil the lion was lured out of the protected zone he was in and that what technically made the hunt illegal was that the landowner of the land Cecil was lured onto did not have a lion on his hunting quota. The hunters attempted to destroy the tracking collar (if what I've read around the internet is true), so that would indicate some concept that he knew what he did was wrong. He seems guilty from most ways one would look at it.

What bothers me was that I read Mia Farrow tweeted his work address (which later was deleted when people mistakenly thought she tweeted his home address)--yes, I understand his work address could have been found by persistent enough people with other means, but someone like her tweeting it implies she was trying to set a mob on him.

I would rather see the authorities do their job rather than a mob at Palmer's workplace or door.

A petition to extradite Palmer back to Zimbabwe reached the requisite signatures. I think it would be fitting to extradite him.

[gaggedLouise]

I'm with Blythe here. In an ideal world the hunting/killing of lions (and tigers, elephants, rhinos and a few other typical "big game trophy" animals) for "leisure purposes" would already be outlawed, and effectively policed I think. These are beautiful and unique beasts who have been with us throughout history - some of them actually originated around the same as the transition from apes to early hominids - and they badly need to be protected. Plus I think people are getting away with poaching too easily and on too low sentences, even when caught. But getting a mob to lynch the guy, or to turn him into a pariah forever, isn't the right thing to do.

I hope he can be extradited to Zimbabwe.

[Thumper]

Question I have is why is the first world more worried about him killing the lion than the people that live there? Answer? Because the locals like them being hunted. It brings tens of thousands of dollars into their economy thins a population that kills their livestock and even members of their community and gives meat to the local tribes and villages.

I'm not fond of hunting apex predators. I just don't do it. But the hunt was conducted legally. Instead of worrying about a lion that was killed legally, in regards to the dentists actions anyway, how about we worry about things that actually affect us in our daily lives?

[gaggedLouise]

Okay, but i think we have a right to feel offended and angry about actions that hit at a common human heritage, and the survival of big cats as a group of unique, iconic species is that kind of an issue. I feel offended about IS smashing priceless ancient statues or killing people in Syria and Iraq, too, though it doesn't affect me in a direct, everyday way.

To many people the hunting down of Cecil seems to symbolize the depletion and senseless hunting of the whole species of lion. I think that's easy to understand, though it's not the POV of some of the natives who see the lion as an enemy. 

[Thumper]

I can understand people being upset. I just don't agree with folks calling for the death of a man (not any of you that I've seen) that participated in a regulated and legal hunt.

Hunting is required to maintain and regulate the health and population of a species when there is limited habitat and prey. We've seen this time and time again even in the first world. Take the deer population in North Carolina. People got worried about a small decline a decade or so ago so they severely limited tags issued. Within that decade the population exploded and became dangerous not only to people on the roads and to crops. But to the species as a whole. Because they were so over populated they went from a fairly solitary animal to almost a herd animal. Chronic wasting disease spread like wildfire and nearly decimated the population. Far more so than any hunting effort could have in the same amount of time.

Conservation is one of the things all moral hunters are concerned about.

[Cycle]

I just don't agree with folks calling for the death of a man (not any of you that I've seen) that participated in a regulated and legal hunt.

According to the officials of Zimbabwe, it was not a legal hunt.

"The illegal killing was deliberate," she told a news conference. "We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he can be held accountable for his illegal actions."

[Oniya]

The hunts in Zimbabwe are used as a form of income (through tourism) and population control.  The target animals of legal hunts are generally older males that have already been defeated and exiled from a pride, with little to no chance of forming a new one.  The cost to the lion population is 1 animal.

Cecil was the leader of a pride, and had 24 cubs.  The new leader of the pride will most likely kill all of those cubs in order to get the lionesses to go back into heat and propagate his genes.  The cost to the lion population with this hunt was 25 animals.

[Ephiral]

If the locals think it's so great, why are they up in arms?

Worth noting: The collar he was wearing? Was part of a study about the effects of sport hunting near preserves. Turns out it's a big problem - 24 of the 62 tracked animals were killed by sport hunters, and the general pattern for lions living on the border of preserves is much higher.

Also worth noting: This is not his first lion hunt. He had some idea how this works.

Also also: His statement that his "local guides" had secured all proper permits? Big surprise, it was a lie. One of his guides was the owner of the farm where the shooting took place. If he was involved in hunting, it's rather unreasonable to think he didn't know that his own farm was an unquotaed, unpermitted area. And if the good doctor thought this was all legal and above board, he was remarkably incurious about the attempted destruction of the GPS collar.

So yeah, this whole thing is shady as shit, and the only source saying it was legal is a man with a vested interest in shaping the narrative and a track record of lying about the legality of his hunts. Death threats are, as always, unacceptable, but I sure as hell won't cry because his practice shut down or because people are angry at him.

[Drake Valentine]

Question I have is why is the first world more worried about him killing the lion than the people that live there? Answer? Because the locals like them being hunted. It brings tens of thousands of dollars into their economy thins a population that kills their livestock and even members of their community and gives meat to the local tribes and villages.

I'm not fond of hunting apex predators. I just don't do it. But the hunt was conducted legally. Instead of worrying about a lion that was killed legally, in regards to the dentists actions anyway, how about we worry about things that actually affect us in our daily lives?

Not all locals, there are groups that are actually trying to protect and preserve lions. The only people that profit is the corrupt government that promotes the hunting of exotic animals, but does that money really go completely into the community or back into their pockets? You would imagine with all the variety of exotic animals they allowed to be hunted, that they should be thriving in cash. Lion hunting being, what, 16k - 35k for one lion? That isn't

Lions are not that large of a group anymore, their numbers are scarce. 50 years ago they range in 400k, today they are 20-30k and that is just a good estimate, probably less than that.  If it was an actual wild lion not collared and not on private land,  he might of gotten away from such a backlash. Though with it being an iconic animal on a national park, that is a different story.

The ones who are upset the most are those that treated that lion as a symbol to their private land. A symbol that some douche trampled on by luring out and knowingly killed. There are good reasons his actions are loathed not only by the Zimbabwe(sp) people, but by other groups as a well including celebrities. What he did was wrong. People acknowledge it being wrong and he should rightfully be punished for it. Paying to hunt a lion is one thing, but that does not apply to tagged and collared creatures that are under protection.

I just hope that such an incident raises awareness to the lion population as a whole.

Competition and Bragging rights
Trophy hunters do not care about conservation, the struggle for survival of many animals. What they care about is killing the biggest and the best, and bringing home full trophy mounts or body parts. Heads, horns, tusks, and other body parts of most of these animals are legally, and sometimes illegally, imported as trophies to the United States by the hunters.

Trophy hunting hurts conservation
The mantra of trophy hunters is that their killing “benefits conservation”, but not only are individual animals brutally sacrificed, trophy hunting poses a significant threat to the very survival of African lions. Similarly, considering that African elephants are already endangered— by some estimates facing extinction in 50 years—it is ludicrous to argue that trophy hunting benefits elephants.

The ESA allows importation of endangered species only for scientific research, enhancement of propagation, or survival of the species. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which implements the ESA, has broadly interpreted the term “enhancement” to include trophy hunting of protected species, and trophy hunters often take advantage of the loopholes to find ways to take “their trophies” across the U.S. border, under the guise of scientific research and other permits for exemption.

In 1997, Kenneth Behring, millionaire, trophy hunter and former president of the Safari Club International (SCI), paid the government of Kazakhstan to allow him to shoot an endangered Kara Tau argali sheep, of which only 100 individuals were left. He then donated $100 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and solicited the help of the museum for an import permit. A public outcry ensured and USFWS withdrew the permit. This is not an isolated case and the reality is that many museums have been involved in facilitating the killing and import of endangered species by trophy hunters in the past.

http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/wild-free2/habitats-campaign/anti-hunting/hunters/trophy-hunting/

And to see how it hurts conservation

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/5-reasons-trophy-hunting-is-not-conservation/

[Thumper]

See that's the thing with news outlets. Look at one site and they say the men that organized the hunt are out on bail on poaching charges. Read another and they say no charges have been brought. Read another and it's said to be a completely legal hunt. Read another and the locals don't even know about it.

It's all where ya get your information.

The outrage we are seeing from over there is largely centered around the few animal rights activists. The locals have by and large been quoted as saying they don't care they're too busy trying to make a living.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/30/zimbabwean-cecil-killed-lion/30889253/

Other sites say locals are angry.etc ad nasume

[Ephiral]

See that's the thing with news outlets. Look at one site and they say the men that organized the hunt are out on bail on poaching charges. Read another and they say no charges have been brought. Read another and it's said to be a completely legal hunt. Read another and the locals don't even know about it.

It's all where ya get your information.

If you look at the links I provided, you'll notice that one of them was from the authorities responsible for bringing charges. So yeah, I'm pretty sure I trust them when they say charges have been laid and this was an illegal hunt.

The outrage we are seeing from over there is largely centered around the few animal rights activists. The locals have by and large been quoted as saying they don't care they're too busy trying to make a living.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/30/zimbabwean-cecil-killed-lion/30889253/

That article is basically Dear Muslima, extended edition. It also ignores the fact that Cecil was a direct source of income to the region in the form of tourism, and is out of date.

So yeah, I guess it does depend - if you get your news from very distant secondary sources, sometimes they'll screw up by the numbers. Which is why I cite primaries when possible.

[Cycle]

From the Associated Press, dated today:

"Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin," Oppah Muchinguri told a news conference. "We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he be made accountable."

...

"I have already consulted with the authorities within the police force who are responsible for arresting the criminal. We have certain processes we have to follow," Muchinguri said at the offices of the national parks and wildlife authority. "Police should take the first step to approach the prosecutor general who will approach the Americans. The processes have already started."

She said both Palmer and professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst violated the Parks and Wildlife Act, which controls the use of bow and arrow hunting. She said Palmer, who reportedly paid $50,000 to hunt the lion, also violated the act through financing an illegal hunt. The landowner violated the act because he "allowed a hunt to be conducted without a quota and necessary permit," Muchinguri said.

[Avis habilis]

Cecil was not a person!!!

\me sits back with popcorn.

Whether he was or not, you've been here long enough to know better than to start a thread for the sole purpose of creating an argument. Do it again & you'll be permanently banned from PROC. Thread locked.