[AnotherUnixGeek]

He said getting upset about Cecil but not other lions "is disingenuous and tragically dishonest."

True enough. I don't care if people choose to hunt non-endangered animals, though hunting isn't my thing. But lions could go extinct in the wild by 2050 if current trends hold. I don't care if the government of Zimbabwe or other dysfunctional Third World kleptocracies allows hunters to kill rare animals - a responsible person would refrain.

[Rodney Dangerfield]

I wonder what the reaction would have been if this story ran instead?

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/594798/Walter-Palmer-Huntress-Kendall-Jones-killed-endangered-big-five

[MarMema]

I did not know extinction was a possibility. Great news. Thanks for sharing.

[21twelve]

I would imagine that the threat of extinction for most animals is not the fairly rare legal hunter (rich white guy that can afford the huge fees), but is poaching and probably more so habitat destruction due to increasing population and/or expansion of civilization.

In a lot of places the legal hunts pay for the game wardens that protect the animals from poachers. Legal hunts also promote the landowners management of their land for the animal (in order to make money off the hunts).:

http://conservationmagazine.org/2014/01/can-trophy-hunting-reconciled-conservation/

“Leader-Williams describes how the legalization of white rhinoceros hunting in South Africa motivated private landowners to reintroduce the species onto their lands. As a result, the country saw an increase in white rhinos from fewer than one hundred individuals to more than 11,000, even while a limited number were killed as trophies.”