Ok, I’ll bite this time.
I agree with everything you said. There is not an overpopulation of Lions, so this is not a cull.
I am prepared to be flamed into outrage oblivion on this- but I grew up a deer hunter in PA. I don’t hunt recently for various reasons, but I grew up a hunter, it was important to my father, my mother never liked it. I found I enjoyed it, except for the actual killing. And no, I don’t care to hear snarky replies to that statement. There is more to the act of hunting than the act of the kill itself, and those were always the things that I loved.
If I told you I loved hiking into the forest in the dark, waiting to see the sunrise over a frosted forest, the smell of dead leaves, far from even the slightest sounds of civilization, where I could sit all day in peace, would you think I’m an asshole? Can you imagine liking the same thing?
This guy, I don’t think he would have seen any collar even with a scope under the mane of the lion though, and I think it is reasonable to expect that local guides could be seen by people who big game hunt to be trusted. You normally vet people like this though. I can see how it could have happened, and I think aside from the fact the guy basically killed Simba in many people’s minds, including my own, he doesn’t seem to have wanted that effect. His apology is a bit pathetic, but then corporate ones usually are.
He is a trophy hunter though. So I think he’s an asshole. If you want to hate me for being a non-trophy hunter, chances are you don’t know anyone who is one, have never been exposed to it, have never spoke with anyone who does it and why they do it. Perhaps you have, but I’ve found hate is often a symptom of ignorance, willful or otherwise. In any case- I’ll let you in on a secret. Deer hunters, and others who hunt animals they actually eat, and have encroachment and overpopulation issues, often cannot stand people like the dentist- normal hunters often despise trophy hunters, in much the same way non-hunters do.
I dislike killing, period. Even though I have, I still go through anguish when I kill a deer. But even if you choose to consider it a twisted way of showing my respect, I respect the animal by eating it. I don’t kill things for fun. That is simply indefensible in my mind, and many other hunters. Yes, we can go to the store and buy meat, we don’t have to kill it ourselves. But then, you are only avoiding an inconvenient truth. Someone had to kill your burger. I try to think of killing my diner myself as a way of being truthful toward the animals I eat, honest about the reality of how I and most humans live, even if honest means sad, unlike others who have never killed what they eat. If you eat meat, you play a part in the death of an animal somewhere. We are all equally guilty in that regard- I just take responsibility for it directly.
And on that note, yes- only vegetarians and such have any “moral” right to call us out for harming animals. But that’s the same to anyone who eats a hamburger. Which I’m guessing is many of you. I love tofu, actually. It is underrated and unfairly mocked. But I will not live off of tofu and beans without hamburgers. I won’t.
I applaud vegetarians for the choice they make. That is owning up to and refusing to harm animals. Good for you. Seriously. But not everyone else in the world has such strong convictions to completely alter the diet of their species from hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution. Consider yourselves more evolved then, if you like.
Finally- my area in PA actually does have an enormous overpopulation and location problem with deer. It’s why many here do hunt. Meat often gets donated to shelters fresh. We have deer and people dying everyday from car collisions due to encroachment, despite massive tracts of wilderness the deer abandon in population- to move to the city and eat your tulips. I know this because I have been to that wilderness to hunt over decades, and seen the actual numbers drop to see more in the city. People’s image of my neighbors being rednecks that simply enjoy killing things for fun is not fair, in fact, it’s bullshit.
If you must hate someone, those people are the trophy hunters. They cut the heads off in the field and let the rest rot. They are in the same group as poachers to me. Make of that what you will.
