patrick.net

SoftShell says

you should try hunting or some other avenue to experience nature in the raw

Hunting with guns and technology is experiencing "nature in the raw" ??? Try doing it like the cave men did for a true experience.
Those huge fat slobs in the pictures above, that proudly display their hunting skills are not capable of moving 10 feet on their own legs. I wish the lions had gotten them first. A whole pride could be fed for a whole month with the amount of body mass they carry around.
True animal lover - Strategist.

Strategist says

You have not given a single convincing excuse to justify humans killing for sport or thrills.

There s no excuse needed. It just is. Only far leftie animal rights activists look for an excuse.Strategist says

Opposition to this madness grows everyday, and it's just a matter of time before hunting is completely outlawed

Maybe in CA-but thank God there are other places where sane people live.Strategist says

Hunting with guns and technology is experiencing "nature in the raw" ???

Yup-even an animal knows that. A lone lioness will never ever take on a healthy adult cape buffalo by itself. But a pride of lions will-even animals are sensible enough to only take on risk when their odds are better. Even they don't want to get injured in an "equal" fight. They know, they are smart and gauge risk
and will attack only when there is minimal risk. It is surprising that some humans seem to forget this and think that one must not have the upper hand while going into such situations. Even cave men were smarter-else they would not have survived. No wonder too civilized nations always have barbarians at the gate- too many people in the clouds oblivious to reality.

Oh my God, somebody killed an animal-lets kill him and have a celebration and they seem to think the one who killed the animal is the bad guy-sigh.

SoftShell says

I have no problem knocking off something that is physically threatening you, or if you are starving and need food.

To the animal it makes no difference-wether you killed it for sport or because you are starving-it is dead either way. the only difference is in your head-which is fine, but when you support people who call for his public execution-well what does that make you??

it's irrelevant what the animal perceives...humans have evolved past the "raw" existence. What should matter to the supposed evolved species is unnecessary or sport killing.
It's a human to human concern. Of course, not all humans have evolved at the same rate.

lostand confused says

To the animal it makes no difference-wether you killed it for sport or because you are starving-it is dead either way.

who has called for his public execution?

lostand confused says

but when you support people who call for his public execution-well what does that make you??

There was a time when a White westerner could walk through the continent of Africa all the way to Lake Victoria shooting every thing in sight.
Books were written about them romanticizing them. Then people take literature classes and read about these guys exploits. Then when they get rich enough to live their childhood school dream of reliving the escapades of historical and literary adventurers, everyone is like "Boo feh fooey!".

If the rules is we shouldn't kill endangered wild life period then we shouldn't. It happens anyway because of conservation loopholes that says some animals have to be put down. That creates exploitable opportunities to legally kill endangered species that otherwise people should not be killing. I say leave the animals alone in the park and let Darwin sort it all out. It should be illegal to kill any wild life in any national park and for 100's miles within it's border. The only animals that should ever be killed would be maimed animals that may be suffering, and there's no scavenger or predator around to finish them off. Healthy animals should not be killed regardless the reason.

Now if those are the hard rules then the guy is guilty, but they aren't. And for all he knew he was on a legal hunt. He's a scumbag for even wanting to travel 3000 miles just to kill a lion, but there he is.
Africa should use this to change the laws on hunting African big game and outlaw it all outright. With domestic meat hunting exceptions especially for indigenous people that live on bush sustenance.
But they don't kill and eat Rhinos, Elephant, Lions and other non meat animals.

I think Africa's wildlife and other great animals around the world and like our Oceans and Tropical rain forests, are dwindling resources. Their resources weren't always unique to their geographic regions they are just all that has left, and they are disappearing.
Shark attacks are up so drastically I believe because the Oceans fish stock have dwindled so drastically. That is why sea life of all species are exhibiting strange behaviors. From sea mammals, to sharks to everything. A lot of mystery beaching and mass die offs. Our Forests are diminishing and being depleted more every week. This is what is wreaking havoc on the Earth's weather patterns, and causing severe drought in many regions. Most of Earths remaining wild life live in small isolated pockets and patches close to increasing encroaching civilization or indigenous peoples becoming more civilized that they start profitizing the natural resources they once respected and cherished.

If anyone in the world should get a guaranteed income, it should be these people who are living on the fringes of the last of the World's once abundant great resources.
They should be paid to conserve and compensated to NOT consume those resources. There's a grocery store down the street that has a cooler of frozen seafood in plastic bags. This freezer runs about 90 feet long and I'd say 90% of what is in it, has never sold and never will. I would bet most of the over priced fish they have in the fresh case, ends up repackaged and in that freezer case. Now obviously they're over buying cheap and rigging the prices keeping them inflated so that just a few sales bring them more money than if they sold most or all. This has been our grocery store's business model in this country for way too long now. They throwing away more food than they sell, but rather than letting market prices dictate what those items should sell for they are just throwing it away. We're clear cutting forests, scorching earth and strip farming the Earths climate making forests, and for what? A few extra dollars on Asparagus? In the meantime we're developing the world's most fertile and productive farming lands throughout the United States and the World to build posh landscaped housing developments. and Nobody says a word man...

How in the hell did Cecil get so Facebook savvy?

The world could use more of that.

It's amazing to me how far-removed-from-nature specimens of humanity will apply their hot-house morality to nature and call it righteous. You have no idea what biology or nature is about. Sport hunters are the ONLY reason that Africa is not absolutely devoid of big game animals like lions and elephants and Cape buffalo. They pay BIG money to ensure that the local fauna is worth more alive than dead to the local NATIVES! Africa is swamped with people with poverty issues. To them a Chinese medicinal gall bladder or rhino horn is a goldmine, and perfect reason to exterminate every single species of non-human life for temporary profit. The sport hunters have introduced a singular condition to this premise: a live sport animal is worth $$$!!!! Villages get their own $$$ from every animal sport hunted, so they have reason to leave the animals be so they can be hunted later and bring the village $$$! This is the only motivation that could possibly work to bribe the local indigents to not hunt and kill all the animals in their areas.
Africa is only as wild as sport hunters can make it. It would be a teeming zoomanity otherwise.

LOL, exactly. If not for sport hunting, the local Africans would have killed all the big predator animals in order to protect their livestocks. Whereas nowadays the locals probably feed cattles to the lions and leopards in order to increase target population and make the hunt easier, and make more profit that way. The particular lion was obviously used to being fed by humans, so not alarmed by the ready availability of a meat buffet laid out for him despite obvious human scent; it's a game animal / livestock just like a cattle or a chicken: fed regularly, then have to pay for the food with its life. Who knows, maybe they should molest lioness for lion milk, so nobody gets killed. LOL!

Personally I don't aspire to go to Africa to hunt big predator animals, but I can appreciate it is their money keeping the non-human top predators in the local eco system instead of having the African savannah over-run by low-efficiency farming. The Asian Elephant is far more endangered than the African Elephant, and the Southeast Asian Tiger is already extinct, both largely thanks to local farmers and antibiotics reducing human child mortality half a century ago.

nice unsubstantiated soundbite, but i'm afraid we'll need a Fred graph for verification...

Reality says

but I can appreciate it is their money keeping the non-human top predators in the local eco system instead of having the African savannah over-run by low-efficiency farming.

Shooting a tame humanized lion lured from a zoo with a crossbow and gleefully watching it slowly die over an agonizing 40+ hours is not sport hunting.
It's a hop skip and a jump from ted bundy territory...
the dentist should have all his teeth pulled out and be forcefed a plate of live african fire ants...

Quigley says

Africa is only as wild as sport hunters can make it.

SoftShell says

Shooting a tame humanized lion lured from a zoo with a crossbow and gleefully watching it slowly die over an agonizing 40+ hours is not sport hunting.

It's a hop skip and a jump from ted bundy territory...

I've always thought that people who hunt for sport weren't all that far off from hunting a human. At the very minimum, they are desensitized to the pain they are causing another creature. Granted, it's not the same as killing a human, but the lack of sensitivity to creatures other than themselves seems similar to the way a sociopath might think. It's one thing to hunt because that's the only way you are going to eat. Or the only way you can keep warm. But there is something missing from a person who kills for fun. Watching any creature die a horrible death and calling that "fun" is twisted. At what point will they decide that it might be fun to torture and kill a fellow human?

turtledove says

Granted, it's not the same as killing a human, but the lack of sensitivity to creatures other than themselves seems similar to the way a sociopath might think. It's one thing to hunt because that's the only way you are going to eat. Or the only way you can keep warm

Projecting your own feelings to animals aside, some of our Presidents have been avid hunters-Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, Jimmy carter, Dwight Eisenhower.

It is life and death and again an animal that is dying does not know the difference -if it is being killed for sport or for meat of fur. That is just human projections. It is funny, the meat eaters wills ay-oh if you are hungry, fine animals can be killed-there are tens of millions of chickens that are killed for meat and the number of all game animals killed in sport pales in comparison. Hunters have always led conservation efforts-albeit for a selfish reason-you have to preserve game in order to continue the tradition of hunting. No different than a meat farmer that ahs to have more births than slaughtered/sold.

Those that cannot differentiate between animals and humans are the sad ones and likely to be off kilter-like some of the posters above calling for public executions . To them killing an animal is the same as a human -how sad.

I wouldn't personally date a highly trained professional sniper (what if I have to dump her later? ;-), but I can appreciate what she does for living. Likewise, one doesn't have to be a friend of a person who pays big bucks to shoot lions for ego boost, to realize that in the bigger scheme of things, the realistic alternative to sport hunters is not a lion paradise, but an even more stark reality: how long would the whole pride of lionesses last in the face of locals armed with cheap Kalishnikov assault rifles and riding on Toyota pickups, just because some lion/lioness snatched a cattle (or even a human child) from local farmers. The real threat to the big predator animals are not sport hunters, but the farmers, who have a long history and tradition of rounding up and killing all "dangerous animals" as they pushed forward the frontier of human settlements.

diversions....the dentist will pay with his business in the toilet..

Reality says

The real threat to the big predator animals are not sport hunters, but the farmers, who have a long history and tradition of rounding up and killing all "dangerous animals" as they pushed forward the frontier of human settlements.

irrelevant.

lostand confused says

Projecting your own feelings to animals aside, some of our Presidents have been avid hunters-Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, Jimmy carter, Dwight Eisenhower.

it's not about this...

lostand confused says

It is life and death and again an animal that is dying does not know the difference

It's about this...

turtledove says

but the lack of sensitivity to creatures other than themselves seems similar to the way a sociopath might think.

Animals are not humans, and the more you anthromorphosize them it becomes clear that you don't understand them at all. City boy.

Quigley says

Animals are not humans

Lets hunt them down and kill them all. It will be so much fun to see puppies and kittens squirming in terrible pain while their mother watches.
We are humans. We have compassion and empathy.