I understand the he was a beloved local celebrity, and I don’t quite get the thrill of sport hunting lions. It’s not for the meat, and apparently they don’t run and hide from hunters so it’s not difficult (or so I’ve heard), so yeah, it may have been a dickish move, but the outrage has gotten so over the top the the hunter has had to shut down his dental practice and go into hiding.
The level of outrage seems totally out of proportion to what happened.
I’d guess it’s more of a general outrage over the hunting of lions being focused onto a single target. Cecil wasn’t the only lion to be hunted that month (or that day, probably) but the dentist is the guy people know about and can make into a lesson.
Yes.
Yes you are.
The rest of us are readying our bows and arrows for a little righteous vengeance.
We will burn an effigy to take all the hunter sins away. The dentist happens to be that.
His “trophies” include a leopard, with bloody gutted photos to boot. He’s posing with rhino he shot in one. He had legal trouble over a bear he shot possibly illegally.
His home must look like a charnel house.
He’s a jackass. I don’t give a shit if his apparently lucrative practice is shut down. I hope he’s extradited to Zimbabwe.
I am not defending the man. I just think there are things more deserving of media attention than this one idiot hunter.
We are Large - we contain Multitudes. We can be outraged about other things and still work towards getting that asshole extradited to Zimbabwe, where he can rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life. Failing that, his career is effective over.
Still have enough outrage left over for the murderous Cincinnati campus cop and the Koch brothers.
Eh, its not like the media is now and forever going to only report on Cecil the lion stories. Its the story of the day, it’ll get decreasing attention as the week goes on and by next week we’ll have moved on to something stupid Donald Trump said.
Plus looking at CNN, foxes and NPR’s “latest news” headlines, its kind of a slow news day. And at CNN and NPR, the top story is about a cop killing a suspect, not someone killing a lion. So even today, the media seems capable of reporting on other things.
He just better hope folks don’t find out the lion was gay and planning to get married shortly.
Yeah, it’s keeping me up nights.
The modern burden is that we must individually have opinions about every single event in the entire world. We must ensure that everyone complies with our personal moral code at all times. We must never consider the idea that people sometimes make mistakes. Furthermore, we must treat everything, including hypotheticals, as being equally important.
I know the Internet is going crazy over him, and I agree, it’s too crazy - but he’s still a total asshole that deserves at least a portion of the blame going to him.
The thing with the lion is, everyone can pretty much agree the lion shouldn’t have died. Oh, people are unsure about gay marriage, or the economy, or Obamacare, but the lion! The lion was cute and he was on a preserve and he shouldn’t have died.
I too hope he’s extradited.
And the thing is, his “mistake” was trusting the people who set up the hunt who seem to have screwed up. But in order to make that mistake he had to pay some people upwards of 50 grand and fly to Africa with the intention of killing a lion. Not a lot of people can sympathize with that sort of oopsie.
This lion was special, most lions don’t make it anywhere near 13 years of age. He was also a very important tourist attraction and generated quite a bit of money for the local economy. He was basicaly a tame lion who was lured out of the park for an easy risk free shot by a hunter who wanted to go home and brag about his braveness. He gives hunters a bad name.
Because murdering a human is entirely appropriate for the killing of a beast.
I am not outraged exactly, but as a hunter I am offended by the dentist’s crappy technique. Additionally I don’t believe in trophy hunting, or killing animals I don’t plan to eat except in self-defense or population management.
Some people are only good as examples to others. The reaction to THIS particular killing might have been over the top (though i do not agree), but if it leads to fewer losers trying to make up for the size of their cocks by killing majestic animals for fun then his life might not be a complete waste.
The lion was not “cute.” It was impression, majestic, handsome, and in person no doubt scary as fuck, but not “cute.”
If I was generous, sounds like he couldn’t be assed to find out if his actions were legal or not. Now that he knows it was illegal he couldn’t be assed to accept the consequences of his actions. Hell, if I wasn’t generous, the man simply knowingly bribed his way into clumsily shooting a protected/famous member of threaten species (in a poor country) and is now dodging the consequences.
ep, hard to cry for this guy.
Who said anything about murder? You can put scores of arrows into a human body without hitting anything vital.
Seriously though. The sound you heard when reading my previous post is spelled whoosh.
I have no patience at all for sport hunters. The worst I’d wish on this one is a trip back to Zimbabwe or wherever it was for a trial and possible incarceration.
The news has something to offer everyone.
For folks with soft hearts for animals, we’ve got the Dentist Killed Cecil the Lion story.
For folks who care about racism and police brutality, we have Sandra Bland et al.
For folks who care about politics, we’ve got the on-going What Did Donald Trump Do Today? soap opera.
For folks who care about feel good stories, we’ve whatever they’ve got planned for the last five minutes of the Nightly News.
Personally, I don’t really care about Cecil the Lion. Maybe I would if it was a slow news cycle. But I’ve got other stuff on my radar. I don’t know if they are more important than the Cecil thing, though. They are just more interesting to me. And that’s all that matters. 
I think he’s an asshole for shooting animals for sport.