[xone]

If none of the above, then what was the point in shooting it?

Conservation reasons? Too many lions on the available land? She had 60k and there isn't a lion shortage? The villagers did eat it. I wonder if you'd have the same objections if lions were a part of your daily life. While you contemplate your first two objections, the lion will have completed its work.

[steelhead_trout]

What work? Eating some animal that his lionesses killed. Sleeping most of the day? Like I said before, if the lions needed culling, that was a valid reason. Calm down.

[rottndog]

I wonder if you'd have the same objections if lions were a part of your daily life. While you contemplate your first two objections, the lion will have completed its work.

This reminds me of a show I watched on PBS a couple of years ago about an elusive rare giant crocodile somewheres in Africa. It had been blamed for many human deaths in the region, and the locals wanted it killed. Some wonderfully intentioned biologists, who of course lived on other continents, wanted to capture the beast for study, because of its' irregular size.

They got permission from the government there to try and catch it alive, instead of shooting the damn thing at the first opportunity. On several occasions, the croc was sighted and observed, but could not be captured, even though it could have easily been killed. IIRC, this went on for a couple of months, during which time about A DOZEN MORE PEOPLE WERE KILLED by it!

Finally, they gave up trying to catch the croc, because it simply disappeared. The pointy headed geeks were so disappointed they couldn't capture it. I didn't see ONE IOTA of regret over the human beings that died because the croc continued on the loose. Best guess is that someone in the region, possibly even some soldiers, got fed up waiting and quietly killed it.