It's hard for me not to get incensed over this story of the Minnesota dentist who killed that lion in Zimbabwe.
In a letter to his patients, Dr. Walter Palmer writes, "I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion." No, no, Doc. You didn't take the lion. You killed the lion. Your choice of verb is indicative of the problem here. To you, it's like a chess game — "I just took your Queen!" — but the result is exactly the same as if you'd said, "I think it would be fun to kill a lion!"
And if you step back and look at that sentence as a whole, it roughly translates to: "I deeply regret that my goal of killing a lion and paying a lot of money to kill a lion resulted in the killing of this particular lion." Does he get that most of the folks calling for his head now would feel that way about any lion?
Part of me would like to see this guy punished in a way that might cause others to think it might not be great fun to kill a lion or a deer or any other animal out there. I would stop short, as PETA hasn't, of calling for his execution…but I think this guy needs to be spanked hard enough for others to feel it.
However, part of me is uncomfortable for two reasons about the response to this — mine, included — one being that I am a Carnivore. I eat animals. I have heard the arguments for why it doesn't make you a hypocrite to do that but to abhor hunting and I don't completely buy it, especially when you consider the inhumane treatment of so many of the animals who are "processed" (i.e., killed) for food. Yes, there is a difference between killing animals for food and killing them for fun. It just doesn't seem like that vast a difference to me.
I'm willing to admit I don't "get" hunting. There are certain things in this world that others love that are like that. Back when Dick Cheney shot a hunting companion, I asked a former hunter I knew what was so much fun about the activities of that day. My friend was quite upset that what Cheney and his pals had been doing was being passed off as "hunting."
He said (approximately:) "Real hunting involves skill and risk and discomfort and challenge. What Cheney was doing was going to this camp where they raise quail to be shot, clip their wings so they can't fly, sometimes drug them so they're easier targets…then the hunters are driven up in air-conditioned SUVs and they get out, point their $3000 rifles which someone else loaded for them at birds that are two feet away and blast them. That's not hunting. That's killing helpless birds and pretending you just went on a dangerous safari and displayed great bravery and marksmanship."
Okay, maybe so. But I still couldn't understand what was enjoyable about what he would have considered "real" hunting. He and others have tried to explain it to me and the appeal, like I say, escapes me.
I can't imagine standing over the body of a dead deer and feeling pride in having shot it. Then again, as I'm writing this, I've been eating turkey sausage and I don't want to think of how those turkeys were fattened for the kill and then killed.
So I'm upset that that lion was "taken" (i.e., killed) but I'm also aware I don't have the cleanest of hands when it comes to the subject of animals being "taken" (i.e., killed). That's part of the reason I don't feel wholly comfortable with my position.
The other part is the vast number of human beings who are killed every day in this world without this kind of outcry. Yeah, Cecil the Lion is dead but so are so many others for no better reason. Doesn't it bother you that there are persons out there who are more upset at the murder of a lion than they are at the murder of a fellow person — especially a fellow person with dependent children? Bothers me.