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I still can’t quite get over the hoo-ha created by the death of Cecil the lion (remember to use the British pronunciation: “Sessel,” not “Seessle”). Temple Grandin is a well-known designer of humane animal handling systems for the livestock industry, and she attributes the uproar to the mere fact that the lion had a name. Did the mighty Minnesota dentist hunter break Zimbabwean law? Dr. Walter Palmer claims that he had hired Zimbabwean hunting guides and followed their instructions. He shot the lion (with a bow and arrow!) on private farm property, not in a game preserve. Theo Bronkhorst, his guide, had tied a dead animal to the hood of their jeep, and Cecil apparently was able to smell dinner and wander out of the national park, whence he met his doom. There were no fences.
The outcry was great. Zimbabwe has called for Dr. Palmer’s extradition. He is in hiding, so his dental practice in Eden Prairie has understandably ground to a halt. He has become the poster boy for ugly rich Americans looting the national resources of little countries unable to protect themselves. Palmer must be something of a hunting fanatic—he shelled out $54,000 for the safari, and since his arrow only wounded Cecil, he and his guides spent the next 40 hours tracking the animal. They removed the head, skinned it, and left the carcass. Palmer’s reputation was not helped by a conviction for bear poaching here in Wisconsin. People have picketed his dental office with signs like “Murderer!” and “I am Cecil.”
Zimbabwean Goodwell Nzou wrote a bewildered piece in the New York Times, amazed at the uproar. In his African village no one mourned the death of a lion. They terrorize villages, slaughtering the farm livestock and mauling and killing people. Zimbabwean president-for-life Robert Mugabe has been in power since 1980. He has so thoroughly wrecked the nation’s economy that he must be grateful for the Cecil sideshow to divert attention from his misrule. Two-thirds of the nation’s workers do not participate in the legal economy.
I don’t hunt. I fished a little with my kids when they were smaller. We released or ate the fish we caught. Forty years ago I killed some rabbits that were eating up vegetable gardens on the seminary grounds where I was studying. I don’t hunt, but I have no moral outrage over people who do. The hunters I know butcher and eat the deer they kill. The animals in the Milwaukee museum that delighted my children were killed so that they could be stuffed and mounted.
The moral outrage I am feeling right now is that even Planned Parenthood’s sale of body parts of aborted babies is not enough to stop my tax dollars from helping to fund that organization.
Originally posted by Time of Grace.
