How about “willfully ignorant?” Surely he at least knew that he was near a protected national park, not to mention that African lions are an endangered species. Also, this particular lion was wearing a GPS tracking collar which the hunters attempted to destroy. I don’t see any way that an educated person could possibly remain blinded to all that, no matter how skillfully he was “conned.”
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Of course he is.
But for a “big game” hunter like him, one that has shot and killed many animals before Cecil the Lion, I ain’t buying it!
He knew the deal, and if he didn’t he should have. Ignorance of the law and all that.
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Oh, he knew what was going on. He’s hunted endangered animals before, apparently.
Christ, what an asshole.
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Fuck him. He still went to Africa to kill a lion because his cock can’t get stiff anymore. Trophy hunters are filthy pieces of shit.
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Zimbabwe has an extradition treaty with the U.S. and from my reading it looks like he committed a crime in Zimbabwe. Anyone have experience in getting that process started?
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This shouldn’t be a status symbol anymore. The 19th century is over, Teddy Roosevelt is dead, no one is impressed except a bunch of idiots.
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This guy goes in the same bucket with the elephant poachers who sell tusks for money for Boko Haram. The dregs of humanity.
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Yeah, right. Typical. Rich guy wants poor guys to take the fall for the crime he committed. He knows ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
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just watched his advertisement ad … poor employees must be horrified they have abruptly lost their employment … the business will be closed by the time the accountant says your ruined professionally and socially #karma
I wouldn’t want to hang out with him, but if he’s hunting in a sustainable fashion (this event not withstanding) is he really causing harm? And if he’s not causing harm then why should he be shamed?
There’s a spectrum ranging from falling victim to an expert con to being completely complicit and how he’s punished should depend on that.
But I don’t think we have enough information to make that determination yet, all we have is a lot of assumptions and the viral outrage. For instance how do you even know he saw the collar or knew how the lion was lured out?
Aren’t a country’s own citizens usually exempt from that? But at least an international arrest warrant would be most inconvenient on any future hunting trips.
By the same token, you don’t know but what everything that is reported about him is true, so why defend someone about whom the best that can be said is that he didn’t know what he was doing.
The fact is that he shot a beautiful animal for sport, not for food. He paid a lot of money for the privilege of doing it simply so he could add it to his kill list. Doing it with a bow is almost guaranteed to add to its suffering because it takes a perfect shot to kill it quickly. Those facts are not in dispute.
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Kill him and leave his body for the jackals.
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[quote=“llamaspit, post:32, topic:62660, full:true”]
By the same token, you don’t know but what everything that is reported about him is true, so why defend someone about whom the best that can be said is that he didn’t know what he was doing.[/quote]
I’m not defending him as much as I’m saying don’t condemn him when you likely have an incomplete and/or misleading version of the story.
And I think he’s a douche whom I wouldn’t get along with. But unless you’re a vegetarian I don’t see how you can condemn him if he’s hunting sustainably and not hurting the ecosystem.
He’s adding an extra challenge (and giving the animal a better chance) to enhance his enjoyment at the price of potential extra suffering.
If you eat meat that isn’t free range you’re causing suffering to save money.
If you are a non-free range meat eater I’m not sure you can claim superiority on that count.
This isn’t his first rodeo. Exactly how many endangered animals should we let the guy kill before we can assume he’s not just a rube getting fleeced by expert con artists?
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Why are you talking about endangered animals and posting a picture of him with a white rhino which is “Near Threatened”? (thanks to PhasmaFelis for pointing out it was “Near” instead of “Not” though still neither Endangered or Threatened)
It’s actually “Near Threatened”–there doesn’t appear to be an official “Not Threatened” status–but it’s still the second-least-vulnerable category of seven, just below “Least Concern.” Southern white rhinos appear to be the most abundant rhino species in the world, and their numbers have grown substantially in the last few years, so your point stands.
(I am assuming this is a southern white rhino, because there are only seven northern white rhinos alive, all in captivity. If this guy somehow found and shot a surviving wild northern white rhino, that would be awful, but it seems very unlikely.)
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Well as long as we’re getting pedantic that “N.T.” stands for “Near Threatened.”
Anyway, I daresay that anyone who hunts big game with that kind of regularity can’t claim the “rookie hunter mistake” excuse when they get caught doing stuff like this. Especially since he almost went to prison in 2008 for illegally shooting a bear 40 miles outside the area he was licensed to do so and then lying to a Federal agent about it. Again, not his first rodeo.
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I am kind of uncomfortable with demonizing trophy hunters as a group. The ones who legitimately only hunt non-endangered animals…well, shooting an antelope just to take home the horns and leave the rest to rot instinctively seems shitty to me, but that antelope probably still had a better life than the cow in my hamburger, didn’t it? Unless I go vegetarian or start exclusively buying cruelty-free, I’m not in any position to judge regarding unnecessary cruelty.
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He is human garbage. Throw him into an abandoned pit mine and let the world forget his name.
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