In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions

[Warpy]

11. There are lions that menace the villages

and those are pests that need to be relocated or even destroyed. We do the same here with problem bears and cougars. Generally, they leave humans alone unless they are injured or starving. Apparently we don't taste very good.

What this guy needs to realize is that Cecil was protected and wearing a collar. He was lured out of the preserve by bait dumps. There is no report of his ever having been a pest.

In no way was this anything but a canned hunt by unscrupulous guides and featuring a 1%er who didn't give a damn how it happened as long as he got a lion's head for his trophy room.

That's really the deal here, fury against a 1% twit spending a fortune to kill threatened and endangered animals because of his status as a 1% twit. It's proof positive that such people are grossly undertaxed.

It's for this reason that so many of us here in the west hope he's extradited and spends time in a Zimbabwean prison thinking about where his life has gone wrong--like killing an obviously protected animal wearing a collar.

We really do understand, at least those of us in parts of the country with large and dangerous animals around, that problem animals must be dealt with. We would hope they are dealt with by professionals who actually hunt them down, kill the right animal, and don't let it suffer wounded for 40 hours until somebody manages to finish it off. We don't even mind if the heads and hides of problem animals are displayed in Zimbabwe, where they can give comfort to threatened people.

We just want to end hunting them for fun and profit. Those days should be over.