Protestors outside office of American hunter accused of killing Cecil the lion. (Reuters)

Cecil the Lion and America’s Broken Outrage Meter

Heather Wilhelm – Real Clear Politics

One of the joys of the digital age, at least to many, is the thrill of discovering a new World’s Most Despicable Person. You know the drill: First, some poor sap says or does something dumb or politically incorrect. Next, mobs of wild-eyed, unhinged keyboard cops swoop in to judge, shame, excoriate, and issue over-the-top condemnations. Finally, if they’re lucky, the Mean Typing League might even manage to destroy a life or a reputation or a business or two, not to mention everyone’s general faith in humanity.

This week, that person is Dr. Walter James Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota with the unfortunate habit of paying copious amounts of money to kill large, exotic animals around the globe. Earlier in July, as the world discovered this week, Palmer messed with the wrong large, exotic animal: Cecil the Lion, one of Africa’s most beloved and famous lions, a favorite of wildlife researchers, and the “star attraction” of Zimbabwe’s Hwagne National Park.

I, like most of humanity, had never heard of Cecil the Lion until this week—thanks to the Internet, he now has approximately five million devoted new best friends, who had also, oddly, never heard of him until now—but there are several videos of him circulating online. He seems like a nice enough lion, I guess, if you like sexist oppressor male kings of the jungle.

(Cecil the lion November 2012 (AP/Paula French)

The Death of Cecil the Lion

Editorial Board – New York Times

Humans are very selective in their attitudes toward threatened species, and obviously Cecil, a beautiful beast, is the beneficiary of very selective attention. And while critics and non-hunters are repelled by the killing of beautiful animals simply for bragging rights, hunters are not the main reason for the decline in the population of African lions — about 30,000 today, down from 200,000 a century ago. The main threat, as to many other animals large and small, is a vanishing habitat. Some hunters argue that they help conservation through their efforts to maintain the habitats of their prey.

These debates will not be ended by Cecil’s cruel death, but maybe something important can come of the public outrage. It should refocus attention on the many species that are in danger, particularly elephants, rhinos and other beasts being destroyed for their tusks, horns and other parts. President Obama was right on his African trip to forgo the usual safari and instead to announce new legal measures to curtail the transport and sale of elephant ivory in the United States.

The fury over Cecil’s death should also prompt some soul-searching among hunters who pursue African game, a large number of whom are well-to-do Americans. In one particularly dreadful practice called “canned” hunting, private ranches raise lions purely to trot them out to be killed by “hunters” for trophies.

The Death of Cecil the Lion: A Shameful Waste but Not a Global Tragedy

Rich Lowry – National Review

The regal self-possession of the lion stands in stark contrast to the tawdriness of Walter Palmer’s hunt. There was the money-grubbing — he reportedly paid about $50,000 for the privilege of killing one of the beasts. There was the unseemly baiting of the animal — allegedly with an animal carcass tied to a car to lure it out of the sanctuary of Hwange National Park. There was the cruel incompetence of his method — supposedly wounding it with a bow, then tracking the creature for another 40 hours before completing the kill with a gun. And there was the casual butchery after the fact — beheading the cat and leaving its carcass to vultures and other scavengers.

When it emerged that the lion he had killed was Cecil, a popular fixture long tracked by researchers, Palmer issued a statement saying he had no idea that the lion he “took” (although he won’t be giving it back) was a local favorite. As if it would be okay to wound and hunt down over two days some pitifully unpopular and anonymous lion, for nothing more than the sport and glory of it, such as they are.

Zimbabwean safari operator Honest Ndlovu (R) and fellow countryman and hunter Theo Bronkhorst waiting to appear in Hwange magistrates court, July 29, 2015. The two Zimbabwean men were paid $50,000 by an American hunter who killed ‘Cecil’, the country’s best-known lion, face charges of poaching. July 29, 2015 (Reuters)

According to Liberals, this One Lion is More Important Than All of Zimbabwe

Scott Greer – Daily Caller

We can see the hypocrisy in the fact that the land where Cecil lived is one of the worst places to be a human on Earth — yet no attention seems to be paid Zimbabwe’s people in all the fuss surrounding a lion.

It’d be akin to America going nuts over a slain crocodile in Cambodia while Pol Pot is committing genocide — and we completely overlook the genocide part.

Zimbabwe is ruled by arguably the most vicious and corrupt despot living today, Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has managed to accumulate an extensive record of human rights abuses that would make past tyrants jealous. He’s a big fan of using torture, forced mass evictions, child soldiers and extrajudicial killings against political opponents. For example, when a rival was poised to seriously challenge the tyrant in an upcoming election, Mugabe’s followers murdered nearly 100 opponents and forced 200,000 people from their homes.

It goes without saying that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are two values not found in Zimbabwe.

The nation is also home to one of the most corrupt judicial systems on the planet. That’s the same judicial system that’s now being called upon to try, convict and execute Walter Palmer.

Cecil the lion October 21, 2012. (AFP / Zimbabwe National Parks)

Angry About Cecil the Lion’s Death? Take It Out on the Republican Congress

Steven Cohen – The New Republic

As outrage spread online over a Minnesota dentist’s alleged poaching of a beloved lion in Zimbabwe, Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva saw a convenient political opportunity. “This sort of incident is why we have endangered species laws and why Republicans need to start taking their enforcement seriously,” the Arizona congressman said in a statement released Tuesday. This may seem like typical Washington politicking, but he’s right: Americans who worry about the fate of African lions ought to point fingers at the Republican-controlled Congress.

If the kill is deemed illegal by Zimbabwean authorities and Palmer brought back Cecil’s head and pelt as a trophy, he could be subject to criminal and civil penalties in the U.S. under the Lacey Act, the century-old statute that regulates the trafficking of controlled plant and animal substances. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) confirmed Thursday that “it is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of ‘Cecil the lion.’” Edward Grace, the FWS’ deputy chief of law enforcement, said in an emailed statement, “Multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful. We ask that Dr. Palmer or his representative contact us immediately.”

If Cecil were, say, an African elephant, the FWS would be able to take action regardless of the kill’s legality in Zimbabwe. But African lions are not protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), even though, according to the law’s criteria, they should be: A species need face only one of five existential threats, of which the lion meets several, including the “destruction, modification, or curtailment” of its natural habitat and “the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms.” Seventy years ago, there were as many as 450,000 wild African lions. Today, there may be as few as 20,000. Those that remain live on an estimated 17 percent of their historic territory.