Cecil the Lion

[TLSnell1981]

The killing of Cecil is despicable act. Why anyone feels the need to kill an animal for sport is beyond my comprehension.

 

[mnrose]

Please explain.

My DH fishes. A lot. If he isn't planning on eating the fish, he does catch and release. He mostly uses artificial lures. But, we don't catch fish just to watch them suffer OR to hang them on our walls. You won't find a single dead animal in my house. We eat what we keep.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Well, the coward and his cronies lured out poor Cecil with the scent of a dead animal. I believe indeed he may have intentionally wounded him in order to make " the hunt" much easier and safer for himself. By all accounts he was a very experienced hunter and excellent marksman so he would know exactly where to aim to only wound the animal and not kill him outright.

Deliberately wounding a lion does not make the hunt safer. Killing it outright would have ended any danger. Wounded lions are far more likely to attack than are uninjured lions. So, that doesn't fit your theory at all. In fact, wounding the lion made the hunt 1,000 times more challenging and dangerous. And if challenging was the goal, he would have hooked up with a legitimate firm, not one that was prepared to hand him a semi-tame, poached animal on a silver platter.

Moreover, wounded animals are often lost entirely, or if found, are destroyed by other predators or scavengers. He paid $55,000 to get a head on his wall, not to risk losing it to the bush.

So, I stand by my opinion. He muffed the original shot, and not at all on purpose. Lions feeding on a tree-hung bait rarely stand still, so messing up the shot is a lot easier than one might think.

 

[Hrhpd]

To be clear, the $55,000 has already been paid. And the guys he paid were professional hunters (what we would call hunting guides in the US) not tour, guides. These guys were credentialed, but operating outside the law.

Not making excuses for the dentist, because I fully believe he knew this was not a legal hunt. BUT, whatever you have to say bad about him, these outlaw PH's are even worse.

Let me clarify - He won't be able to raise more money for more hunts.

I know he has already paid off the hunting "guides." As I mentioned before, that is why there is speculation that the US may have to extradite him to Zimbabwe. Although the poaching is not part of the extradition treaty with Zimbabwe, bribing is an extraditable offense.

 

[Cantw8]

This guy is a disgusting piece of ****. He wants sport? How about covering him in steak sauce and letting him run naked through the woods with a hungry pack of jackals on his sorry ***

 

[Jdbsfw]

I don't like hunting at all, but I can understand when people hunt for meat to feed their families. I can't stand how some people "hunt"; I know of some who feed the animals in the off season, then set up a tree stand so they can kill the animal when it returns to the spot where it's found food before. Disgusting. The owner of Jimmy John's also pays big bucks to hunt large animals like this (an elephant, a leopard, and some others). I made the choice to stop eating there because of it. I hope this dentist's customers will make a similar decision. I simply can't understand the allure of killing any living creature "for sport".

Hunting over a "feeder" certainly isn't sporting but it's safer (albeit not for the animal)
-Wandering off in the woods during hunting season can be risky
-Known distance with a known backstop
-The shooter will likely have a wider selection to choose from which means "better" animals will be taken
if you weren't raised around hunting I certainly understand why you don't like it, I have no interest in shooting anything I'm not going to eat

 

[TLSnell1981]

Yes, once they decapitated and skinned Cecil, they left his body to rot. And they tried to hide his tracking device.

(Can't find link to that again but read it earlier. Won't post link anyway due to disturbing pictures within the article.)

Yes, the pictures are graphic and upsetting. Although, the mindset of the people responsible, disturb me even more. They removed Cecil from a safe environment, killed him and removed parts of his body..for a fee.

This is a common occurance? It's even LEGAL in some circumstances? Why no outrage, until now?

 

[Hrhpd]

And that was exactly what I was trying to get at. A social media lynching. Meanwhile, our people constantly and proudly post their pictures of their big "catch" fish that they will never eat, wild animals and birds that they shoot for pure sport and hang on their walls and nobody blinks an eye. We kidnap innocent whales and dolphins out of the ocean for our amusement parks not thinking of them or their families.

But the masses go ape crap over one lion because he is "majestic" "exotic" "beautiful". I wish for the day that we respect all animals as much as beautiful Cecil. May he RIP.

And in the meantime everyone is cool with burning down the dentist's home and business and hanging him.

You forgot "endangered."

When people hunt deer, elk and others and hang those heads on the wall, they have legal permits that were designed to control over population. This lion was a protected lion, lured out of a protected reserve. I don't understand how you don't see the difference. I personally could not hunt myself, but there is a difference between poaching an endangered species and hunting for meat or population control.

And absolutely nobody on this thread, unless I missed it, has said it was ok to burn his house or business down or to literally lynch him. And you are accusing the others on this thread of drama.

People are upset. Venting about how this guy is a piece of crap is not a call to go out and hang him. People can hope he gets extradited, they can hope he has to pay fines. They can even hope his business is ruined. His employees will find other jobs and are probably much better off in other jobs as this guy's malpractice insurance has already paid out over $100,000 in sexual harassment claims.

There have been other threads about animal cruelty in the US. You participated in one recently. There is outrage over captive dolphins and whales and even slaughterhouses. To insinuate that because people are upset about an ENDANGERED animal (not an overpopulation like deer) means they don't care about whales and dolphins is ridiculous.

And yes, I eat meat.

 

[dinolounger]

How about covering him in steak sauce and letting him run naked through the woods with a hungry pack of jackals on his sorry ***

Charming. You would have fit in well with the crowds at the Roman Colosseum circa AD 100.

 

[robinb]

So, I stand by my opinion. He muffed the original shot, and not at all on purpose. Lions feeding on a tree-hung bait rarely stand still, so messing up the shot is a lot easier than one might think.

Yeah, I believe you. I'm certain that he tracked Cecil to finish the job, not to make the hunt more exciting or to make the lion suffer. What's not clear is if he had a clear shot sometime before hour 40 but didn't take it because it would have ruined the trophy. I have heard that perhaps he didn't shoot because he wanted to retain the condition of the trophy.

 

[kandb]

This POS is not sorry, he is only sorry he got caught. What kind of sick individual gets a thrill out of killing an animal? I hope this human garbage goes bankrupt from the backlash from this. Hope karma gets him. He deserves it. That disgusting grinning face of his next to the poor dead animals is sickening.

 

[Hrhpd]

I wanna know how they didn't see his collar? Also, with the guides being local how did they not know this was Cecil? He was that popular.

I read an article that said Cecil has a very unusual black mane and that it was very possible that the trophy hunter was targeting this particular lion for the unusual trophy.

And even if they weren't specifically targeting Cecil, his unusual black mane would have identified him immediately.

 

[dinolounger]

People are upset. Venting about how this guy is a piece of crap is not a call to go out and hang him.

Yes, certainly:

They should throw the dentist into the wild and then say it's time to hunt for the most dangerous game!

I have zero qualms about...tearing this man to shreds.

I couldn't care less that he's getting death threats.

One can vent (even when said venting has gotten numbingly repetitive and redundant) without reveling in bloodlust and vitriol.

But that requires understanding that not doing so immediately diminishes your message.

 

[Jillpie]

My husband and I had the most incredible opportunity last year, to have gone to Africa for 18 days. We had the most amazing safari experiences, including many, many lion sightings, just inches away from us in Kenya, Tanzania and finally, on the Serengeti. This story is killing me, truly. I don't get it, I'll never understand hunting beautiful animals out in the wild, in their natural habitat. So very, very sad.

 

[AnnaFloridaLover]

You forgot "endangered."

When people hunt deer, elk and others and hang those heads on the wall, they have legal permits that were designed to control over population. This lion was a protected lion, lured out of a protected reserve. I don't understand how you don't see the difference. I personally could not hunt myself, but there is a difference between poaching an endangered species and hunting for meat or population control.

And absolutely nobody on this thread, unless I missed it, has said it was ok to burn his house or business down or to literally lynch him. And you are accusing the others on this thread of drama.

People are upset. Venting about how this guy is a piece of crap is not a call to go out and hang him. People can hope he gets extradited, they can hope he has to pay fines. They can even hope his business is ruined. His employees will find other jobs and are probably much better off in other jobs as this guy's malpractice insurance has already paid out over $100,000 in sexual harassment claims.

There have been other threads about animal cruelty in the US. You participated in one recently. There is outrage over captive dolphins and whales and even slaughterhouses. To insinuate that because people are upset about an ENDANGERED animal (not an overpopulation like deer) means they don't care about whales and dolphins is ridiculous.

And yes, I eat meat.

I didn't forget endangered. Lions are not considered an endangered species.

Cecil was a protected lion in a national park who was probably lured and killed illegally. It's very sad and I'm disgusted by all trophy hunters.

Unfortunately, trophy hunting of lions and other big game animals is allowed with legal permits.

 

[Luv2Run]

Yes, certainly:







One can vent (even when said venting has gotten numbingly repetitive and redundant) without reveling in bloodlust and vitroil.

But that requires tunderstanding that not doing so immediately diminishes your message.

How's life going for you up there in your ivory tower?

Your comments here hardly make sense, but from what I gather, this is very head-patty and finger-waggy. Sorry to break it to you, but I already have a mother, I don't need another one. I have a right to feel how I feel about this situation from what I have learned about this scumbag of a man. My vitriol (yes, that's how it's spelled) towards Dr. Palmer is well-deserved.

Had this man truly been as honorable and responsible of a hunter as he claims he is, he would have had the moral compass to point him in the right direction once he realized this was Cecil and not some other lion from his pride. Whether that was when he first glimpsed Cecil with his signature black mane, when he took the first shot that injured him, during the 40-hour tracking, when he made the final kill, or when he discovered his GPS collar. At no point during all of this did this man halt the expedition upon discovering this was Cecil. He instead chose to follow through with beheading & skinning him, then abandoning his carcass, simply because he wanted a high-profile kill to hang on his wall. The right thing to do when he discovered this was Cecil would have been to contact Oxford University (the ones who had been monitoring Cecil via the tracking device), the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, and then face the consequences of his actions like a real man. Instead, he chose to run away and hide like the greedy coward that he is.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Yes, certainly:







One can vent (even when said venting has gotten numbingly repetitive and redundant) without reveling in bloodlust and vitroil.

But that requires tunderstanding that not doing so immediately diminishes your message.

And your finger wagging isn't???

Give me a break.

How's life going for you up there in your ivory tower?

Your comments here hardly make sense, but from what I gather, this is very head-patty and finger-waggy. Sorry to break it to you, but I already have a mother, I don't need another one. I have a right to feel how I feel about this situation from what I have learned about this scumbag of a man. My vitriol (yes, that's how it's spelled) towards Dr. Palmer is well-deserved.

Had this man truly been as honorable and responsible of a hunter as he claims he is, he would have had the moral compass to point him in the right direction once he realized this was Cecil and not some other lion from his pride. Whether that was when he first glimpsed Cecil with his signature black mane, when he took the first shot that injured him, during the 40-hour tracking, when he made the final kill, or when he discovered his GPS collar. At no point during all of this did this man halt the expedition upon discovering this was Cecil. He instead chose to follow through with beheading & skinning him, then abandoning his carcass, simply because he wanted a high-profile kill to hang on his wall. The right thing to do when he discovered this was Cecil would have been to contact Oxford University (the ones who had been monitoring Cecil via the tracking device), the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, and then face the consequences of his actions like a real man. Instead, he chose to run away and hide like the greedy coward that he is.

 

[Mizzoufan]

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[FlightlessDuck]

I don't care that he was duped and his tour guides were the ones that directed him toward Cecil. Trophy hunting is wrong. Especially lions. You want to hunt for food, fine. Other than that, you suck.

But, one of my friends on facebook pointed out that people seem to be more upset about this than they are about Sandra Bland, which is a little messed up. Even if she did commit suicide.

 

[gwynne]

I don't care that he was duped and his tour guides were the ones that directed him toward Cecil. Trophy hunting is wrong. Especially lions. You want to hunt for food, fine. Other than that, you suck.

But, one of my friends on facebook pointed out that people seem to be more upset about this than they are about Sandra Bland, which is a little messed up. Even if she did commit suicide.

I think there is plenty of room for concern and outrage about both. I don't see how linking or comparing the two events is particularly helpful or necessary.