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The killing of a beloved lion named Cecil by a trophy hunting dentist from Minnesota has an outraged American public asking: What kind of monsters would kill a majestic big cat for fun? Unfortunately for one Republican presidential hopeful, the answer is: his sons. Donald Trump was forced to weigh in on the issue this week after a gory photo of his trophy hunting sons resurfaced online, tying his family to the very practice that has sparked fierce backlash in recent days. When asked for his response at a press conference in Scotland this week, Trump was reportedly far from...

Full title: Here's What the Guy Who Paid $50,000 to Kill Cecil the Lion Can Learn from the Guy Who Paid $350,000 to Kill a Black Rhino Done right, paid hunts for endangered animals can be a huge boon for conservation ... the problem isn't that Palmer paid a lot of money to hunt a lion, it's that he didn't pay enough money, he paid it to the wrong people, and he killed the wrong lion ... American Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 for a permit to hunt a black rhino in Namibia under the auspices of the Dallas Safari Club...

Society has a funny way of deciding when to express outrage. Millions of innocent humans (aka pregnancy tissue) are slaughtered, and their fully intact body parts are sold. Crickets. A single lion, which was unknown to most of us, gets hunted for sport. International drama. I despise the thought of big game hunting, but it never ceases to amaze me how rhetorically violent animal rights activists become when these creatures are harmed or killed. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has called for the hunter involved, Dr. Walter Palmer, to be hanged. The puppy-killing, celebrity-studded, publicity-stunt-centered organization epitomizes...

The meaning of an individual animal Among the reasons not to feel outraged about the killing of Cecil the lion are these two: he had a human name and he was a well-known tourist attraction. I say ‘tourist attraction’ instead of 'beloved lion’ because that hackneyed phrase seems to me a concept empty of meaning. How can a lion be wild and be 'beloved’ by people who saw him once from a safari jeep? You don’t earn the right to 'love’ a lion that way. Cecil was a wild lion who was habituated to humans, collared for a biology study,...

...spark comparisons with Walter Palmer, killer of Cecil the lion Their dad likes shooting from the lip, but the Trump kids prefer shooting wild animals with guns. Pictures of Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the two adult sons of bombastic 2016 candidate Donald Trump, shooting wild animals in Africa have resurfaced, sparking unflattering comparisons of the mogul’s heirs to lion-killer Walter Palmer. The Trump brothers went on a 2011 hunting trip in Zimbabwe, where they snapped photos of themselves with enormous dead animals they took down. In one photo, Donald Trump Jr., known to many as “Donnie,” is seen...

For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'. "Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country," said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. "What is so special about this one?" As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a...

As part of the celebrations for his 91st birthday next Saturday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will be served a feast featuring five impala, two buffalo, two elephants, two sables, and one lion. According to a report in Zimbabwe's The Chronicle, the menagerie was donated by Tendai Musasa, owner of the prominent Woodlands Farm near the Elephant Hills Resort at Victoria Falls, where the 20,000-person shindig will take place. While you'd think that eating elephants and lions, icons of wildlife conservation, would be illegal, it turns out it's not—neither under Zimbabwean nor international law. As of 1997, elephant populations in Botswana,...

Dr Walter Palmer is a dentist in the human happiness business. His website, at the River Bluff Dental clinic in Minnesota, says he ‘strives to create dazzling smiles’. For 27 years this self-anointed kindly man has showered his patients with extraordinary care and comfort, ensuring they leave his surgery immeasurably more self-confident than when they entered. His official photograph on the website exudes almost Saintly virtue; Palmer’s own gleaming dentures shining beatifically beneath his warm, bespectacled, twinkling eyes. But there’s another side to Dr Palmer. A side he alludes to right at the very end of a Q&A on the...

NORVELL TWP, MI -- Rick Briggs has always been involved in charity work to help veterans, but when his son came back from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder, he knew more needed to be done for veterans. "A lot of guys put a gun in their mouth because they don't have hope, they don't have a purpose," Briggs said. "They need both hope and purpose to move forward." So, Briggs partnered with other volunteers to bring a shared dream to life. The 137-acre campsite of Camp Liberty, once finished, will feature a welcome center able to house a large family...

The Internet exploded in outrage this week after it was revealed that a Minnesota tourist killed a beloved lion while on a hunting expedition in Zimbabwe. That indignation reached Capitol Hill yesterday, as 4th District Rep. Betty McCollum was quick to call for justice for the protected African lion, fondly referred to as Cecil the Lion. [Snip] “To bait and kill a threatened animal, like this African lion, for sport cannot be called hunting, but rather a disgraceful display of callous cruelty,” McCollum said. Palmer says he was not aware that the lion was a protected animal, and regrets what...

I’d really like to shoot a dinosaur. I know that some of you are going to think that is just a little weird, but maybe if you have been reading this column for very long you might be getting accustomed to such things. Now that the movie “Jurassic World” is out I felt that it might be more socially acceptable to talk about such things, what with all the dinosaur blasting going on in this flick. You see, here is what is really great about all this. Once we accept the premise that we are going to hunt dinosaurs we...

Gun owners across the U.S. continued their unprecedented spending spree in 2014, buying firearms and ammunition at a record clip and, whether they knew it or not, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into wildlife conservation programs. Advertisement The federal excise tax on new firearms, ammunition and archery gear — collected at the manufacturer’s level — jumped to $824 million in 2014, up from the all-time high of $812 million in 2013 and more than triple the amount from a decade ago, according to recent federal data.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) plans to take one lucky supporter with him on an upcoming "shooting excursion" as part of a recently launched fundraiser and sweepstakes for his presidential campaign. But there's a catch: the winner may have to endure a background check first. The caveat is an interesting one given that Cruz helped lead the effort to defeat a 2013 bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales nationwide. The bill, which was championed by President Obama in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, ultimately went down after an intense lobbying effort from pro-gun...

Katherine Chappell, 29, was attacked, bitten, mauled and killed by a 9-year-old African lioness this past Monday, June 1. She wasn’t on a real safari, but rather driving through South Africa’s Lion Park to photograph and see wild lions up close and personal at this popular tourist attraction.

A 'sexy' Czech hunter who has been widely criticized for posting photos of her big game trophies and an American TV host paired up for a controversial outing in Slovakia. Michaela Fialova and Larysa Switlyk documented their trip as they hunted roe deer in Europe together, filming as they went in search of the animals. The ladies documented not just the kill, but also the aftermath as they cooked and ate the animals. Fiavola, 27, who is from Litomerice, Czech Republic, spends the rest of her time working as a personal trainer, kick-boxer and guide for other hunters in Africa...

A few days ago the NC House passed a bill that lifts the ban on Sunday hunting (with a gun, you can already bow hunt on Sundays) on private property. Still a ban within 500 yards of a church, and some other exclusions. Localities can reinstall the ban in the future if their local community wants to. Great discussion of the liberty / social conservative dynamic at play. What say Freep nation?

I stopped dead in my tracks from the mailbox to the house as I flipped through mail I had retrieved. There it lay, on a birthday card from my sister.What in the world? She had stuck a little return address sticker in the left-hand corner of the envelope, with one of the worst four-letter words in the world on it: PETA. I flipped the envelope over. It got worse. Another PETA puppy sticker seared me right between the eyes.I called my sis and asked what the Sam blazes did she mean, signing up for PETA? Her answer? “Oh, I got...

The shriek sounded like a cockroach was spotted in the bathtub or a spider in the sink. But the second shriek convinced me it was something worse. I’d just been in the bathroom myself, and dutifully dumped my wet hunting clothes in the hamper. Then put my wet wallet contents under the hair dryer set on medium. The usual pre-front thunderstorm had caught me on my deerstand and soaked me good. But I was pretty sure I hadn’t carried in any creepy-crawlies attached to my hunting clothes. So what on earth…?“Three hundred and seventy- five dollars!” The words—even the syllables—comprising...

Environmental activists cheered the California Fish and Game Commission’s decision to adopt regulations banning the use of lead ammunition for hunting throughout the Golden State. In a unanimous vote, the Commission opted to phase out lead bullets, which hunters groups are calling a de-facto ban on hunting in the state. Environmentalists, on the other hand, are saying these regulations will save California Condors and Golden Eagles from getting lead poisoning. [....] But conflicting federal and state regulations over non-lead ammo only bolster critics’ claims that the lead bullet ban is a de-facto ban on hunting. The federal government is preventing...

A bill to repeal the state law restricting the use of corn or other bait as an aid in deer hunting passed a Senate committee today with an endorsement from country music legend Hank Williams Jr. Williams, an avid hunter known for singing about the outdoors and rural life, said there are times when it's good to have the option to use bait, such as when a hunter takes along a child, a disabled person or an injured veteran and wants to make sure they have a chance to kill a deer. Williams said many other states have no restrictions...