Posted on 08/02/2015 12:29:43 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Walt Disney’s got a lot to answer for.
I blame Bambi and all the anthropomorphic drivel that followed, like the Lion King.
That unfortunate part of the culture, more than anything else, seems to “inform” the view of nature held by effete urbanites who rarely venture out of doors.
So, let me weigh in on the Cecil the Lion controversy.
It was just another animal — and the outrage generated by its death is unreasoned, sentimental nonsense.
People who claim to “love” animals more than people are emotionally damaged individuals incapable of weathering the difficulty required in a real relationship with something that can talk back.
You think your widdle puddy-tat loves you?
Is that why if you leave the door open your widdle snookums heads for the hills and you spend the next month teary eyed, putting up posters begging your neighbours to assist in its return?
(Helpful household hint for Calgarians who have lost a cat: Save yourself the printing costs. A coyote already ate it.)
The guide who took Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer hunting told the British newspaper The Telegraph that they set up on a farm next to Hwange National Park. There is no evidence that Palmer — an experienced big-game hunter — knew anything was amiss. He paid his guide $50,000. It’s reasonable for Palmer to conclude it was just another legal hunt, conducted by a guide who has been in the business since 1992.
Reuters interviewed a guy selling used clothing on the streets of the capital, Harare. Tryphina Kaseke told the news agency: “Are you saying all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country. What is so special about this one?”
I dunno.
Cause this one made Jimmy Kimmel tear up on TV? (I guess it has been a long time since The Man Show.)
You know what didn’t make Jimmy Kimmel tear up on TV?
The estimated 1,200 Africans who are killed by wild animals, including lions, every year.
Or the fact that 10 times as many babies die at birth in Zimbabwe as do in Canada. Or that only 30% of the population has a job. Or that the average wage for those lucky enough to be working is $253 a month. Or that the country recently suffered hyperinflation, that in one month, was estimated at 231,000,000%
And no, that’s not a typo.
Some sources put the cash injection into Africa by hunters at $200 million a year … not including economic multipliers.
That’s big money for those folks. And it’s a lot of protein on the table when the hunt is done.
Lions attack humans when they get old and their teeth decay and need easy prey. Before they starve to death.
And speaking of elderly lions, how old was Cecil?
He was 13. Average life span of a lion in the wild? Around 12-15. That lion was already on borrowed time.
A trophy animal is, by definition, near the end of its life span.
Finally — and here come some of those pesky and annoying things called “facts” — here are a couple from a renowned conservationist and expert in endangered wildlife management.
Guy works out of Cambridge University and his name is Nigel Leader-Williams.
He’s the farthest thing from a trophy hunter. And yet the University of Washington’s Conservation magazine points out that in The Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy, Leader-Williams noted that legalizing the hunting of white rhino in South Africa resulted in a jump from fewer than 100 to more than 11,000.
Why?
Because when the animal was monetized, private landowners reintroduced the animals onto their lands.
Leader-Williams also, according the the university publication, noted that allowing hunting of Zimbabwe’s elephants doubled the amount of habitat under wildlife management. Again, because privately owned lands were made available, thus “reversing the problem of habitat loss and helping to maintain a sustained population increase in Zimbabwe’s already large elephant population.”
Gee. Is there anything capitalism can’t do?
Name the countries that have banned hunting — Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia — and you’ll see an accelerated loss of wildlife and habitat not seen in jurisdictions that allow hunting.
That’s known as an inconvenient truth … but it oughta take precedence over the feelings of pampered North Americans raised on a diet of Disney flicks.
Where do you come up with these talking points!?
Chickens exist in the hundreds of millions strictly for food purposes, lions do not.
Chickens can reproduce many times a year in great numbers, lions do not. (Please save yourself the embarrassment of saying that chickens live an even shorter life.)
The lifetime of the lion is wrought with injury and death on a daily basis, as well as its offspring, when the dominant male is killed or run off.
The position that you can equate these two simply because they are animals is so far removed from the animal behavior, nature, and purpose to be simply foolish.
One Freeper made this submission some time ago, that applies to your position: since 5 is a number and 6 is a number, 5=6. Are you a common core graduate?
If Fido could say, “Hey pal, what’s with the Alpo every day?! Would it break your leg to bring me home a friggin’ raw Porterhouse a couple times a week??? HUH???”
He would certainly NOT be your best friend much longer ;)
I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve thought something like that. Kudos to the author for putting it so succinctly.
Different strokes, and all that sort of jazz...personally, I thought the author sounds like he’s sitting on what passes for his brains...
God created the animals to be food for man.
I’m sure that would come as a shock to the thousands of early hominids routinely serving as main courses to saber toothed cats and dire wolves...
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