Cecil the Lion

Everyday living
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It got out of hand when people were saying this Palmers family should be harmed i thought wow, really. The thing is he did NOTHING illegal. He paid to go hunting, LEGALLY. It is LEGAL with the correct permits.

The other thing too, if this lion was being MONITORED and wearing a GPS collar how come it was able to be lured out of a HUGE PARK, i mean we are talking huge area, without anyone noticing…yet they knew the exact whereabouts of Jericho the other lion who was supposed to have been killed this is a younger lion who is NOT a brother of Cecil but was brought in to be with Cecil…who is still alive and caring for the cubs. I am lucky has I have friends in SA so get to hear about things from the horses mouth.

This shooting happened on 1st July. Someone sold it to the media recently and everyone was up in arms over the FAMOUS CECIL who was killed. Out of all the people upset over it who actually knew about CECIL before this happened?

What annoys me is 24 lions were killed PRIOR to Cecil from the same research group but no one bothered about that.

SIX HUNDRED lions are shot every year actually more.

I thought this was interesting from a newspaper in SA.

The well-loved and well-known lion was part of a long-term conservation study being overseen by Oxford University, and he was wearing a radio collar when he was shot. It’s claimed hunters removed the collar and left it in a tree.

However, the university’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) has come under scrutiny after it emerged the group’s research into African wildlife is funded by companies that support “sustainable trophy hunting”.

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This shooting seems to have attracted more UPROAR then when Pistorious shot Reeva Steenkamp. by the way he is being released now in 2 weeks. Not much justice for her shooting not at all. The weird thing is Pistorious got away with MURDERING Reeva Steenkamp yet everyone is saying Palmer MURDERED CECIL, and should be thrown in jail over it.

Something not quite right here I think.

I dont agree with trophy killing, and i think the dentist is horrible person for even wanting to kill such beautiful animals, BUT he did not act illegally, perhaps the guides and hunters did lure the lion out, but did Palmer know that I doubt it. WHY go to all that trouble to lure out a lion from Hewange park, when lions are plentiful for shooting and even are bred for canned hunting. ?? It makes no sense to me.

I think there is more to all this then meets the eye to be honest.

And sadly worse atrocities are going on in Africa, whilst the hunters shot a 13 year old lion in Zimbabwee, this happened on the same day in Kenya.

While the world mourned Cecil, the 13-year-old lion shot by an American hunter in Zimbabwe, an even more devastating poaching incident was quietly carried out in Kenya.

Poachers killed five elephants in Tsavo West National Park on Monday night (local time). The carcasses were recovered by rangers on Tuesday morning - what appeared to be an adult female and her four offspring, their tusks hacked off.

While the killing of the lion in Zimbabwe has attracted the world’s attention, the death of the five elephants has received almost no coverage, even though elephants are under a far greater threat from poachers than lions. Their tusks can be sold in Asia for more than US$1000 per pound (NZ$1514 per 450 grams).

“It’s just devastating,” said Paul Gathitu, a spokesman for Kenya Wildlife Service. "It took us completely by surprise."

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Trophy hunting has been going on for years. If people are upset by it then donate to the wildlife centres to help keep them safer.

Although i actually sponser an African boy in Kenya to help him get through school.

I have lived in Africa, it will never stop hunting, they need the money from hunting in a bizarre way to sustain the conservation of all the animals. Some sacrificed so others can thrive.

I think its awful I really hate why would anyone want to shoot such a beautiful animal…but it happens, is allowed to happen, and if one good thing comes of poor Cecils demise people might wake up the fact thousands of animals a years are killed legally and illegally in African and perhaps we should all be signing a petition to stop that.

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You talk way too much sense. Never let the Facts get in the way of good hysteria !!! Even the radio told me wrong !!! No one said anything about Cilla either… :wink:

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If all you aspire to is the realisation of spiteful retribution, then bravo!

However, i had (naively) thought the moral high ground was occupied by those who would wish to see a complete and universal protection afforded to ‘big game’ aka Africa’s big five (and lesser thousands)…

but as you prefer…

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Totally agree Paolo we need to protect Africas big five. At least in Kenya its illegal to kill Lion but sadly they are plagued by poachers. I think we need to get a reality check make it far more costly for people to go big game hunting. Make the licence in the thousands…

What really horrified me more then any of it to be honest was the fact that these animals were put in holds in aircraft and taken back to the hunters homes i.e. europe and the states… I am so glad that at least poor Cecils demise has stopped some of the big airlines allowing the 5 to be transported.

this was written in May… Makes you think to be honest. If you Kill it you carry it.

That is what happened in 2005, when British Airways stopped carrying animals destined for scientific experiments in its cargo holds. Despite jeopardising a lucrative relationship with GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical firm, the threat of a customer boycott was deemed too damaging. And it happened again last month, when South African Airways (SAA) quietly banned the transportation of hunted animal trophies—specifically rhinos, elephants, lions and tigers—on its aircraft.

Shooting a marvel of nature and shipping its carcass home seems an odd practice to many. But business is roaring. An estimated 1,000 captive lions are shot dead by mostly American and European tourists on South African ranches annually. That’s nearly double the number of wild lions felled across the entire continent. Killing beasts in fenced-off, private property is easier than gunning them down on their own turf. It’s also much cheaper: tourists can pay $20,000 for a captive male, compared with $75,000 for a wild one. The expansion of the “canned hunting” industry—which breeds lions by isolating mothers from their cubs to jumpstart ovulation—has lifted African trophy hunting revenues to $200m a year.

For SAA, making money from this booming trade should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Tourists have few options but to load their spoils onto planes for one final journey, providing the flag-carrier with lucrative custom beneath the passenger deck as well as above it. Cargo can account for up to 10% of a passenger airline’s revenue. In an industry with average annual profit margins of 1-2% per cent, that is nothing to sniff at. Cargo is also one of the more trouble-free aspects of the business: freight doesn’t complain when you push it around; and many of the fixed costs of getting a plane airborne apply regardless of how full the cargo hold happens to be. SAA, which is in financial straits, can ill-afford to turn away such easy money.

The ethical arguments against canned hunting are also open to debate. Supporters say that it reduces demand for wild kills; that intensive breeding programmes keep a declining gene-pool healthy; and that rural communities benefit from the industry. Others counter that Africa’s wild lion population has plummeted from 200,000 to 30,000 over recent decades, suggesting that humans have a poor track-record of helping the species. And one study, commissioned by environmental groups, found that just 3% of the revenue from trophy hunting ends up in the pockets of locals.

No matter how profitable and defensible, SAA has decided that trophy kill cargo is bad business.

Read more at You kill it, you carry it | The Economist

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Paolo, we are obviously on different thought plains. How else is justice done if the dentist is allowed to do as he wishes regardless of anything? Of course I want to see a complete and universal protection afforded to big game and other creatures.He was duped into an illegal hunt, but you would expect a man of his experience, would check the shoots out more thoroughly…or does his blood lust overide his morality?

Golden Girl, you are in a better placed position than most of us, as you get inside info, that we dont.

Yes, other animals are killed in a way that would horrify most westerners, but the plight of better known ones like Cecil, make us aware…so yes, it is horrible that these animals come to an awful…legal or not…end.

It is admirable that you sponser a boy in a 3rd world country.

love Pollx

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Madam Boudica, we are persistently on different thought patterns, which is why it is so wonderful to read your posts :slight_smile:

I fail to see how mob justice (death threats and picketing of his current place of employment) could ever be deemed adequate, sustainable or even appropriate.

If his current office is closed, it is only because he is taking another (hunting) vacation and will relocate his business on his return, out of the line of fire (pun intended). The sum of your achievements?

Hunters do what they do for the notoriety, attention, ego centric adulation. There is no such thing as a bad story. Check the woman who enjoys shooting elderly giraffes! whatever next? the wily cow? the proverbial barrel full of fish?

These people are amoral cretins of debatable self-worth. that they can align their target in their sights and still pull the trigger completely bemuses and upsets me. but there they are.

My comments are not so much regarding the actual deed itself, but the response to it from the world over; people, media and now airlines. I find it hilarious that airline companies are jumping on this band-wagon of condemnation “we shall no longer allow trophy hunters to bring back their prizes on our flights”… as if no one has ever heard of boats!!! smh. ffs.

meanwhile… anyone seen the ‘endangered species list’ lately? no lions, but plenty of other species with quickly shrinking populations upon it. and how about them ice caps eh?

(sorry… verging on a rant now… not at all aimed at you boudica. this planet just pisses me off sometimes… please, as you were.)

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Paolo, I knew your reply to me would be interesting hun.

Said my piece. C’est tout. I enjoy a debate, but not a slanging match. Enough already.

Enjoy your evening kid.

Luv Pollx

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I totally agree with all you say.

This world is going nuts.

Hunting has been going on for years and years and no one cares you name a lion Cecil and everyone is up in arms. What about all the other lions killed everyday…

Canned hunting. Googling it. They bring on lion cubs so the little tourists can go and pet them and say oooo ah arnt they cute, and they get shown how to handle a lion cub. They put lots of pictures on facebook and show their buddies how wonderful a holiday they are having, and how brave they are petting these cubs.

So what happens when the cubs are grown then and cant be petted? How many tourists actually think beyond that?

These little cubs who grow usually go to farms in SA and then are used for canned hunting. They are so used to following a food truck, they just do that, they follow a food truck innocently thinking in their brain they are going to fed, instead of which they are shot to death like one of those shooting galleries in a fair… bang…your dead, and your head is now on my wall…so this cuddly little cub ends up in an airplane and back in the states or some where in europe.

Hundreds of them every year end up the same way.

We have been trying to stop it all for years, BUT its big money. BIG MONEY, and feeds lots of familes. One hunt is worth thousands of pounds, and these sick people who have nothing better to do with their money go and shoot a beautiful animal, and show it to their friends on facebook look how clever am I the MIGHTY HUNTER. I wish them horrible things and I hope karma is a bitch, but what I hate more then them is PEOPLE who spend hours calling these hunters vile names, wishing harm on their families and behaving in a worse way like mobs and hysteria.

Thousands of young children are being MUTILATED in Africa through vaginal mutilation and no one is in an UPROAR over that.

Yes it was horrible a lion was killed, but no one broke any laws.

I am worried about our planet and I read and do the research. I have had the privilege to live in Africa, and been with Africans and learnt about the Masai. I love Africa its my favorite country. I went to seminars in Kenya to try and educate the Kenyans about cutting down the trees to make charcoal, as they were turning the land to dust and nothing was able to grow as all the top soil was blown away in the wind. It was interesting, and over time and education new ways of cooking food, and learning to replant trees has stopped the famine in this country. Education can work.

PERHAPS its the tourists who need to change. They need to think outside the box. When they cuddle a lion cub they should answer questions what happens to it when it is grown?

When they go to sea world in Orlando, are they actually behaving badly too? I mean they think its wonderful to see these beautiful sea creatures performing tricks, but for me how insanely cruel is it really, but they still clammer to see them and pay a lot of money. I personally think its DISGUSTING.

Perhaps we should educate the hunters to STOP hunting the big game, if not them, then their children. Show them another way to enjoy these lovely animals, by going on safari with cameras, and shoot lovely photos of them, which they can then turn into canvas art and display on their walls in their homes and show their friends on facebook, LOOK how close i got to an elephant and took a photo of it, and people can see how brave they are as its there on their wall, and the elephant is still alive to tell a tale of the silly little stick thing who pointed a shiny machine at him…but meant no harm and at least the elephant was able to tell this tale to the kids and grandkids lol…(sorry going off a bit but you get the drift). Taking photos of live game is so much more exciting.

I dont have the answers but I do know one thing, the hunter did behave in a legal way, he had a permit, but how many of these PROTESTORS can say the same, when they trespass, and damage property, and THREATEN the lives of children?

No the world has gone mad. Sorry for my rant too, I am passionate about this world, but I am more worried about the mob mentality which seems to be seeping in everywhere… amen lol.

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uh oh! someone mentioned Sea World.

take a look at the film ‘Blackfish’. Although it should not make you feel happy.