Posted on 07/30/2015 8:42:37 AM PDT by Salgak
For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'.
"Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country," said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. "What is so special about this one?"
As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a potential meal, or a threat to people and property that needs to be controlled or killed.
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"Why are the Americans more concerned than us?" said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. "We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange."
Wasn’t the uproar because “Cecil” was coaxed off of a wildlife reserve and then the hunter advised he was available to be shot.
Well these wild cats go onto and off of these wildlife reserves all the time. If they were serious about protecting that lion, they should have kept it penned in.
When you end the hunting, you end the conservation.
Shouldn’t that be #PawsUpDon’tShoot ?
Perspective.
Giving a name to a lion does not make it human. Calling a baby-in-development a mass of tissue does not make it non-human.
Reminds me of my favorite all-time South Park episode, about the Rainforest:
“You white Americans make me sick! You waste food, oil, and everything else because you’re so rich, and then you tell the rest of the world to save the rainforest because you like its pretty flowers.”
No kidding. If these animals were native to the Americas, we'd have killed them off a long time ago. They are extremely dangerous. Hippos and elephants, in their individual categories, kill more humans in Africa than lions, and lions kill hundreds a year.
An "Inconvenient Truth."
And you NEVER will. You'll also not hear much about how American doctors are butchering innocent babies...but in less crunchy ways, so that they can sell their organs and tissue!
More proof that liberalism is a mental disease.
The hunting and tourism make good economic sense and the only way to keep that money coming is with healthy animal populations.
Exactly! We in the West have a profound tendency to anthropomorphize animals of every flavor. Hunting deer is one thing, but hunting “Bambi” quite another. Lions are hunted all the time in Africa, but call one “Cecil” or the “national pet” (even if it’s a pet that most Zimbabweans have never heard of), it becomes a tragedy.
Maasai warriors kill lions all the time in defense of their cattle, with little to no outcry from the West. However, let a rancher in Montana kill a [reintroduced] wolf or grizzly that’s preying on his cattle, it’s a felony and the outcry is deafening...
Lion lives matter
Great comment!
Who mourns for all the zebras that Cecil killed?
We also worry about the way animals are killed so they don’t suffer which is good but we also don’t take into account certain facts in other parts of the world.
You mentioned Maasai warriors who I’ve read will run an animal to death over several days while inflicting repeated superficial wounds.
Same deal with elephants. They’ve been elevated to a position of worship by many in the Western world while the locals live in fear because the locals are allowed no guns and the elephants trample crops and anyone that gets in their way.
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