Lion killing dentist emails his clients, shows little remorse

Yes, It was on the BBC Radio news (6Music) pretty soon after the news came out.

Why should he show remorse? The guy is being torn apart for something he did legally and paid a good chunk of money to do. If there’s a problem here it’s with the system regulating big game hunters.

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Yeah, fuck people and their hobbies. I wish people who’s fashion sense offends me were crucified in the media to.

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Aargh. Damned BBS. Seems I replied to someone’s reply to you. There’s about 6 occurences of the text.
Sorry 'bout that.

FYI (for real, not being judgey or corrective, but because this info might be of use to you), there are vegan Omega-3 supplements out there, including algae-derived ones with DHA and EPA. Deva is the company I use.

While I’m vegan a lot of the kids I teach (in a small-town Virginia school that serves a large rural population of proudly self-proclaimed “rednecks” who wear their hunting camo to school as a point of honor) are regular hunters. And while on one hand, yeah, I broadly lump them in with all folks who incorporate the unnecessary deaths of animals into their lifestyle (alongside drive-thru customers, ribfest attendants, and big game hunters) within that broad category there are different ethical valences.

I’d say most of my hunter students are among the most ethical omnivores (well, when they’re hunting and not when they’re going to Chick Fil-A, but that’s a whole 'nother can of worms) because they aim to kill as painlessly as possible, their quarry isn’t subjected to life trapped in a shit-covered box, and they typically make use (albeit completely unnecessary use) of their quarry by storing it and eating it. Which is more ethical than the bog-standard omnivore who patronizes the factory farm system, which are more ethical than trophy hunters who kill simply to sate their sadism or some bullshit notion of masculinity, which are more ethical than big game trophy hunters like this guy who subject an animal to a slow agonizing death purely to sate their sadism/bullshit masculinity.

But you’re spot-on about the weird sympathy omnivores have for this lion when so many more animals have so many more agonizing deaths daily that they don’t care about. It’s funny, omnivores will get on vegetarians’ cases for the ‘arbitrary’ lines they draw about their diet (“Plants are alive, too, man, what’s the difference?”), but the line between animals and the other kingdoms of life is much less arbitrary than the line most omnivores have between animals it’s okay to eat/kill and animals that are too sympathetic to eat/kill (dogs, cats, beloved lions, etc.).

Yeah, but his example of a “factory-farmed hamburger” IS killing for fun, since eating a hamburger is not necessary, and you’re killing the animal for the pleasurable experience (i.e. fun) of eating a hamburger. Apples and apples.

Killing for food when killing is not necessary: dodgy as fuck. Killing for fun, food not even a consideration: not even dodgy. Just plain evil.

I have no trouble at all drawing a line here.

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A lot of people are surprised to hear we shoot kangaroos here, because they are so cute and cuddly. But they breed quickly and can easily become a pest, and culling is often necessary.

My brother used to head out with some mates in a ute and go shooting them for fun. It’s not something I’d do for fun, but I can understand the appeal, and I think the ethics are sufficiently hazy that it is a matter of conscience in those circumstances.

I think if you fly to Africa to take an easy shot at a lion with a bow so you can take its head as a trophy you are a fucking asshole. They are a threatened species, its a particularly brutal method of killing, the skill required for hunting is largely removed from the equation, and then the trophy is taken in some bizarre deluded fantasy of fearless big game hunting bravado.

It’s fucked up.

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I’d wager that evil that masquerades as necessity (or even as ‘good’) is
much more potentially dangerous than identical evil which is on its face
abhorrent.

The number of animals tortured and killed for ‘legit’ purposes like food
dwarfs the number killed for ‘illegal’ purposes like big game poaching. The
number of people enslaved mining conflict minerals or working in sweatshops
to provide the electronics that power our culture and economy dwarf the
number of people illegally enslaved by individual psycho kidnappers. In
both cases, the act is evil and causes unnecessary suffering, but when the
evil is legitimized, it had the potential to cause significantly more
suffering.

On the other hand, what about the animals spared of agonizing death in the claws of a lion? Won’t anybody think about them?

Yeah, I agree but I don’t think this guy deserves to be hung out to dry because his hobby makes him look like an asshole.
I wish the media would find a Chinese person who uses rhino horn as medicine and ruin their life instead. Rhino poaching is a much bigger problem than regulated big game hunting.

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Oh, don’t get me started on the murder of various fruits and vegatables.

Eat Meat, Save a Plant.

Sincerly Yours,

The Chlorophyll Foundation

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Except that isn’t what happened here. And I’m pretty sure they would have been able to see the gps tracker on the lion.

I think he is taking the brunt for all the assholes who are travelling to Africa to do this. In that respect its unfair on him, but I’d redress that by treating anyone who did it the same way, not going easy on this guy.

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Are you aware that the person who wrote that story supports internet hate mobs when they suit him, like when they’re doxxing and harassing women? I would say I find it “ironic” that people who support internet hate mobs tsk-tsk on internet shame mobs, but I really don’t - it’s a way to avoid being called out for vile actions.

This is a guy who literally believes that if you don’t allow violent fascists into your events you’re a bad person who’s trying to be a totalitarian dictator.

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Those points are valid, and I don’t disagree with them when they apply, or even potentially apply. They don’t here. He’s not the wrong guy, and there’s nothing nuanced about his assholery.

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Is there a single article in whole world that led you to the conclusion that that’s what he thought he was doing?

He was killing a lion because he’s a big game hunter, and lions aren’t yet on the endangered species list in Africa (though they’re about to be). It had nothing to do with “culling.”

And, indeed, hunting on game preserves is known to all hunters to be completely illegal, which is why they lured the lion out of the preserve.

If thieves steal the Mona Lisa, will you say “well, sometimes paintings have to be taken down for cleaning, so…”?

The lengths that people will go to to justify things…

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Lions also kill their mates’ young, which doesn’t mean we should adopt the practice. Most animals don’t do sophisticated reasoning and given the chance or ability will happily demolish ecosystems to their detriment. “But non-human animals do it!” Has always struck me as the weakest of all possible rationales to justify… well, anything.

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You’re missing the entire reason guys like this do illegal things like this. It’s not the hunt itself that gives him a chubby, it’s the fact that “regular people” aren’t allowed to do it, but he can “get away” with it & even brag about it in certain circles. He can’t feel good about himself unless he’s making other people feel bad. It’s a sickness that logic can’t address.

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In addition, IIRC, he shot the lion with an arrow–not a rifle. And compound bows, as I understand, have an effective range of 50 yards, maybe 75+ yards, for the expert shooter (and bow hunters please feel free to chime in on this), all of which is to say that the guy wasn’t firing a 30/30 from ridgeline to ridgeline–the lion had to get relatively close for him to take the non-killing shot.

As you mention, negligence and willful ignorance are written all over this.