Thank you for your uninformed opinion.
Someone who deals regularly with the ethics of hunting, on the other hand, might say that "real" hunters "hang something on their wall" so that they have a memorial of the hunt and the animal and to show off the fact that they successfully killed / took / harvested the animal to whomever might care. (Obviously, that does not include you.) That same ethicist might also say that "real" hunters choose to spend extraordinary amounts of money on gear and licenses and travel, dedicate their time to practice with their weapons, and put themselves into nature with the animal that they intend to kill because of the connection that process creates between the hunter, the natural environment, and the animal that the hunter hopes to kill.
The rest of your comments are just bigoted and ignorant. paid money to kill a lion Every legal hunter pays money to kill the animal. That's what license fees are all about. They fund conservation efforts that maintain or expand habitat, finance scientific research and disease prevention efforts, and other activities that preserve both the target species and other species within that environment. Hunters are responsible for more habitat and species conservation than all of the other wildlife groups combined.
He might as well have went to the zoo. Gone to the zoo. Whatever. He didn't go to the zoo because it is illegal to kill the animals at the zoo. More to the point, it is impossible to "hunt" animals at the zoo because they cannot get away. If you kill an animal at the zoo, or your county fair, or the slaughterhouse, it is not hunting, it is slaughter. I slaughter my own livestock and in fact have had to occasionally shoot chickens that get out of the pen on slaughtering day. That is not hunting, there is nothing about the hunt involved. It is killing calories that happen to still be walking around.
Obviously you have never hunted over bait, never hunted a cat of any kind, in fact have probably never hunted. That's ok, it's your choice. But the only way to hunt a cat is bait or, in some cases, dogs. Personally, I don't like either bait or dogs, which is why I have never successfully taken a mountain lion. But bait is not foolproof, and it is ignorant to suggest that just because you throw out a piece of meat or scent then a lion will be drawn irresistably to stand in front of you and get shot.
He then botched the killing by using a bow and arrow....You seem here to be suggesting that using a bow is a botched hunt. That's contrary to all of human history since hunting with a bow was first invented. Also in my experience, archery tends to be a much more humane method of killing. The blades punch through the skin, slice 1" to 1.5" wide channels, and do so cleanly so that the animal feels a punch, sharp pain, bleeds quickly, lies down, bleeds out and dies. In contrast, gun shots appear to make the animal panic (which can taint the meat and make it gamier), and animals run much farther. Additionally, it is just as possible to wound an animal with a gun as with an arrow. Rather than "botching" the hunt by using a bow and arrow, Palmer likely had to put himself within 40-60 yards of the lion in order to make the shot. No one ever wants to wound an animal, but that is a risk of hunting. Given how most animals die naturally, I have a hard time seeing that even bad hits would be likely to cause more suffering than normal deaths through disease, injury, and starvation.
...causing the poor beast to suffer for 40 hours until it was killed by a rifle shot. I'd use a rifle too. Lions, especially wounded lions, would like desperately to kill you back. Your anthropomorphization of the lion is ridiculous. The animal suffered, this was not an ideal hunt, but that does not mean it was unethical. They wounded the lion and then tracked it for 40 hours. Putting it down with a rifle shot was a choice the guides and the hunter made after that search.
Real hunters kill animals for food & necessity, not just so they can hang something on their wall." Again, one reason to hunt includes putting food on the table. Other than a few of my friends who grew up on the reservation and some older relatives who made it through the depression, no one "needs" to hunt if you define "need" solely in terms of putting calories in your body. But your definition of "need" is dangerous. The vast majority of people on this forum carry or own firearms. None of us strictly "needs" them under your definition. We want them because they provide assurance of personal protection and also because we enjoy using them. You personally may not like firearms, but that in itself is not a reason to prevent others from enjoying them. Likewise with hunters. Hunters get enjoyment, skills, challenges, camaraderie, a connection with nature that neither you nor any of the leftist tree hugging hippies on the other side will ever understand, and other benefits. Given the conditions on many CAFOs and factory farms, you personally and without any concern about it at all inflict extraordinary suffering on the meat you eat that is equal to or greater than that experienced by the animal killed in a hunt. I tried the vegetarian route for a long time, hated it, and now raise or kill 95% of my own meat because I have considered the ethics and philosophy of hunting over an above the knee-jerk ignorance that drives most of the bambi-brigade's fake tears over the death of an animal.
This whole story is full of manufactured BS. It has never been claimed that ‘Cecil’ was killed on the refuge, but was drawn out by bait, which is how you hunt lions. They stated that they had meat on the truck to lure him out. Real story is that when the professional hunters hang a bait, they drag it behind the truck, so that if a lion crosses the path, it will follow the trail to the bait. Virtually all lions are killed over bait. I have a pretty good feeling that lions, much like other game have little respect for the borders of the game reserve, so one wandering off and getting shot isn’t that uncommon. The only thing questionable I saw about the whole thing was whether the guide had a lion on quota in this area, which is hardly the hunter’s fault. Just for information, yes, I have hunted in Africa, as well as a few other countries. It is also not unheard of for guides in Zim to break the rules, since the Mugabe led country is unbelievably corrupt, and greasing the right palms will get them additional hunting access. People paying money to kill lions, elephants, etc are the only reason they aren’t extinct. Can you imagine the crop damage an ele could do, without the upside of selling a $30-50000 hunt? They would kill every one they saw, and Africa is vast and laws are largely unenforceable.
I guess it’s a hell of a lot better to sell body parts off of aborted black babies to fund your Lamborghini purchase, after all.
This whole story is the ultimate in ignorance of how hunting really works, and I am a ‘real’ hunter. I’ve spent weeks in tents in Alaska (unguided), BC, every state in the west, packed out moose in a backpack on foot, which I think qualifies me as a real hunter. My living room is covered with heads, and some I didn’t eat.
I would say any killing that took 40 hours is a botched killing.
You really believe the guides he paid were legit? Any money the dentist paid more than likely went straight into their pockets. They couldn't see the GPS collar they took off the animal? They lured it off a reserve, the next closest thing to a zoo.
I grew up around hunters, but they only killed what they ate. They always taught me to respect life.
I own firearms for protection and target practice.