"In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."

   "The lion sleeps tonight".

   An American big game hunter goes to Africa and kills a famous lion. People find out about this and many end up wishing and calling for retribution on this big game hunter. 
   The retribution they demand is varied; some call for legal prosecution, some call for a brand of social shaming which will end his livelihood, some call for his torture and murder.
   In the midst of this, and a little bit after the initial revulsion has died down, some people begin to look at how the death of this lion fits into their view of the world around them.
   Most of us are aware, at least, that big game hunting goes on in many parts of the world, North America included. We may not be totally aware of the ins and outs of it---the regulations around it or the manner in which it is sometimes carried out. Lately, though, we have been getting a bit of an unsettling education.

A lion. Just not THE lion. Because it doesn't really matter.

   Our horror, in this case, revolves around what is perceived as the breaking of rules and the fact that this lion was only initially wounded and then suffered for almost two days before its demise. It was then beheaded and its carcass discarded. To top it all off, it was a famous and well-loved lion.
   What makes it seem even less savoury (if that is possible) is what I believe to be peoples' perception that this affair was perpetrated by a wealthy privileged white man in a third world country where he both felt impunity to its laws and total disregard for basic morality.
   The man and his family, of necessity, are now in hiding. After the details of this lion's death came out, an internet mob immediately formed and began directing its wrath at the man. Some of the ensuing invective was hard to read. In most cases, it was people simply venting their outrage. Given at least the vocal support of so many thousands of people, though, it is not hard to imagine a few among them who might feel vindicated by this support and then go about trying to seriously harm this man or his family. Hence their disappearance.
   In the last few days, there has been article after article and link after link regarding this lion's death. Some have been of the angry variety and others have taken a step back and attempted to look at the issue from different angles.
   One of these angles is that of conservation. It gets pointed out that big game hunting and the rules and regulations around it are there to promote the continued existence of big game. Were it not for hunting, the numbers of certain big game would exponentially explode, thereby destroying what is considered to be a fairly delicate balance in the ecosystem.
   Another angle I heard mentioned was that this episode seems to have stirred up much more anger here in North America than it did in Africa itself. Some African government officials, when contacted by the press for their reaction to the uproar around the death of this lion, were not even aware of it. In other places, it was pointed out that so many Africans are killed each year by wild animals such as lions, hippopotami, and crocodiles that the idea that one of them might have been killed by one of us was simply not that distressing.
   Other people pointed out that big game hunting helped the economy of wherever it took place. Hunting is obviously big business and brings in much needed money. It also was pointed out that the carcass and bones of the dead animal gets used by the local villagers as food and fertilizer.
   

If you really NEED to kill something,
why not do this instead?

The observation was also made that, given the advanced age of this particular lion, the natural death which awaited him was likely more horrific (to us) than the one he actually endured. As mature male lions weaken, the younger ones begin vying for the position of head of the herd. In the end, this involves continued physical attacks on the older lion which, eventually, kill it. Apparently, lions don't just trot off into the sunset at the end of their lives.
   Finally, it was noted in several places that we, as a nation of principally meat-eaters, were all too quick to condemn the death of one lion while at the same time enjoying the endless succession of steaks, burgers, and pork chops we fill ourselves with. At the same time we do this, we ignore the oft unspeakable things which happen to animals before they become our meals.
   Obviously there are many ways to look at the issue and many stands which can be taken.
   At the heart of it all, I wonder about the people who want to kill large animals.
   After all the reasoning and rationalizing are done, you are then left with someone who is more than willing to spend anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars so that they can bring down large and, essentially, defenseless animals. They do this in Africa, they do this out in the woods behind their own houses here in Canada and the States. They will use many of the above arguments in an attempt to rationalize hunting as a past-time but when it comes right down to it, they are people who like to kill animals and are willing to to sacrifice huge amounts of money and time so that they can kill animals.
   One of the observations I ran into the past week was rather poignant and telling. The point was made that when children, who are essentially immature, kill animals they are regarded as being potentially mentally disturbed. When adults, who are generally considered to be knowing and responsible, kill animals, however, they are considered skilled and daring! Why is this?
   At some point in our evolutionary history, it was necessary to hunt animals in order to survive. That some people still hunt, I imagine, is testament to the tiny parts of this instinct left over from those primitive days. It is no longer necessary to hunt for our meat, though, and it is unsettling that people still feel the need to kill. This may be the hypocritical me speaking, as I do enjoy meat as a food base. Long before a lion was killed in Africa, though, I was already having a difficult time coming to grips with what I was eating needing to be killed first. Is there a vegetarian me sometime in the future. Could be! If there is, I will often think of dead lions in Africa as I'm sitting down to every meal!