What's your opinion of people who hunt and kill non-endangered animals for fun, as opposed to for food?

[Whiskeytide]

39. And that's the rub...

... some animals do "need killin' ", I suppose. If a lion had been terrorizing a village and killing people, most of us would understand the need to hunt and kill it. Sure, it would be nice if it could be tranquilized and relocated, but that's "Mutual of Omaha" drama, and not really a realistic option for the village elders. Kids get eaten, lion has to die.

All of the animals you list need to be controlled or eradicated (and I would add fire ants - I hate them). I think our conservation officials do a pretty good job of trying to manage population issues most of the time, but it necessarily involves killing some of them - and hunting them is the way it's been done since the beginning. The alternative is overpopulation and death by starvation -- for some anyway.

And hunting licenses, hunting gear, land leases, taxidermists... etc. - all of that is part of the private and public economies - especially in rural areas. It's easy to say "fuck everyone who hunts" when your livelihood doesn't depend on some aspect of the activity.

The real trigger with THIS story - Cecil the Lion - isn't really a dead lion. It's not really about hunting. And its not really about killing animals. At least not for most. It's about the privileged asshole who did the killing, the way he went about it, and the stereotype he fits in our minds of someone we - liberals - love to hate. This is a 1% story, whether we want to admit it or not.