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.
I don’t know, but Old Yeller was one movie about growing up. Based on a book too. I just hope those PC police don’t go nuts about the fact that it deals with post civil war issues in a formerly confederate state.
Yeah but Old Yeller is a decent film about how Travis, a teenager grows up in the post civil-war world.
Exactly.
“Too bad to see one group of hunters square off against another, though. Once PETA fanatics finish off big-game trophy hunting, they’ll come for our deer rifles and bird guns. Count on it.”
Back when they were talking about changing our state’s laws for to dogs or baiting going after bears or cats, I didn’t agree with that method of hunting, but still voted against the new law. Just before that I met a guy training his dogs on cougars. It was interesting to talk with him about the traditions he grew up with. I’m not sure if I would go on such a hunt now - perhaps. Mute point in my state though - they passed the law.
And I’m sure the Liberals are waiting for the day when they seek a ban on using dogs for pheasant or duck hunting. And why does one need more than one person on a pheasant hunt? It seems so unfair. And you get to use a shell that hold 200 pellets!? Talk about overkill - that is like having 50 assault weapons in one little shell!
Cursing and quoting the bible in the same post.
Covered quite a bit of ground there.
But to the point.
“The righteous care for the needs of their animals...”
Yes they do.
Especially when caring for the animals needs mean some must be killed.
With wild animals, the most efficient way is hunting.
The permits and fees paid by the hunter are used to manage the animals and their habitat to maintain a healthy animal population.
“but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”
And so too the kind acts of some righteous.
Is it better to leave the lion to over populate his habitat, which will endanger the survival of *every other* species in the habitat.
When a lion is hungry, it eats.
It eats whatever it can kill.
An overpopulation of lions would severely depress the wildebeest, for example.
At some point, there won’t be enough wildebeests left to keep the species going.
That would be devastating to the local ecology.
Take just *one* animal species out of the picture and the ecological order is upended.
It could mean the collapse of the entire ecological system.
So which is the best stewardship, judicial hunting of all animals or leaving them all to wither and die?
We must always look beyond the point just in front of our own noses to see the big picture in order to provide the best stewardship of the ecology.
Innocent? Haven? Anthropomorphize much. Baiting is legal, 'Cecil' was just doing what came natural. Along with all the others that came to the bait.
So you condemn the hunter Palmer based on "what it SOUNDS like"......OK, I got it..........
Really? You think that the liberal toads braying for Dr. Palmer’s scalp are shocked, (shocked!) by the notion that Zimbawe’s game laws might have been breeched? And they are just fine with trophy hunting as long as all of the paperwork was in order? No way. Maybe that’s where you’re at, but it sure isn’t the source of the outrage.
And while we’re at it, just what laws were broken, anyway? And how do we know this? The complaint, in the form of a press release from the Zimbabwe parks and wildlife management authority is that the landowner didn’t actually have a permit for a lion on his land, though the professional guide insisted that all proper permits were in place.
But the interesting thing, at least to me, is that the internet outrage has focused on “baiting” this “iconic” lion out of his protected habitat. Now, having read the press release, I’m convinced that if those things had contravened Zimbabwe’s game laws, those charges would have been added to the complaint. That they have not tells me a couple of things:
1. The internet outrage machine was stoked with a story tweaked and twisted to tug at the heartstrings of urban “animal lovers” and non-hunters and
2. If there WAS a violation, (and that is a long way from being documented) it was related to the landlord’s apparent deception of both the guide and the client.
The lack of interest in finding out the truth is telling. The agenda is clear: stop trophy hunting (under the guise of objecting to poaching). It’s sick PETA nonsense and it’s not going to go without comment here.
Yeah, nothing quite like dropping an F-bomb trying to prove one’s scriptural perspicacity.
I smell a rat.
Kinda like a Democrat, maybe?
Actually, he’s absolutely correct. Legal hunters protect the population because without it they’d be broke. I had a similar conversation with a safari guide once. He hated poachers as do all real hunters.
This nonsense of attributing human characteristics to animals is insane. They don’t love you, they don’t speak English. As the owner you’re just the food supply.
And yes, I do have an animal living in my house.
Why, couldn’t have said it better myself.
thanks for the link
I have known those who would quote scripture all day, then commit adultery at night.
Not much surprises me anymore.
Trophy hunting to put something on your wall to boost your ego is pathetic.
You made the point of the article. Too much Disney. You need a diet of 100% red-blooded American books and movies from now on. Time to man-up.
77 posted on 8/2/2015, 4:18:43 PM by Tzfat
And you need to figure out how weak ego’d men need to prove themselves rather than just being men.
Again with this arbitrary definition of “good hunting” vs. “bad hunting”?
Just because you’ve decided that you don’t like big-game trophy hunting, does not, get this, make it ipso-facto “bad”. It’s just something you don’t like: nothing more, nothing less. My advice, not that you asked for it, is if you don’t like big-game trophy hunting, then, well, don’t go on any big-game hunts. Let someone else save the African large-animal habitat since you so obviously have better things to do.
Your projections of the mind-set of a fellow who can afford an African big-game hunt tell us a lot more about you, than any big game hunters we’ve read about over the past few days. I doubt very much that they spend that kind of money to “prove themselves”: they’ve already done that by excelling in their chosen fields and earning the wherewithall to pay for a license, travel to Africa, pay for the guides etc. etc. etc.
So, your side may well win this one, your PETA allies, animal-rights twits, and Hollywood tree-huggers have a lot more pull than a midwestern Dentist who likes to hunt. Your side controls the MSM narrative, but I promise you you’ll get called out here.
The only person in the universe that tells the truth is you? Or is it that only the people that tell what you want to hear tell the truth?
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