American tourist shot prized big cat.

This guy is acting like he thought everything was legal, if so why would he use a crossbow and not a rifle that surely would be more favorable? Because crossbows are silent and won't alert rangers maybe?

Surely if he didn't know the hunt was illegal, luring the lion out from its park sanctuary should have rung some alarm bells?

Man! Some people have more money than sense, why would you pay that much money just to go kill an animal, and apparently it died a slow horrid death. I dont know maybe he didn't know it was an illegal hunt, but i think its possible he is just playing dumb to try get away with it.

RIP Cecil the lion

Who cares. People are dying of starvation, war and violence and all we care about is a stupid lion getting killed. I don't agree with the idea of trophy hunting but is this seriously the kind of news the media is going to dedicate their time to?

That's American media for you. A huge distraction.

How anybody can get pleasure out of killing animals like that (especially something like a lion), just to claim as a "trophy", is really beyond me. I think Jimmy Kimmel summed it up best...

That is so terribly disgusting. Apparently he's lied about doing something similiar to this before. Trophy hunting is just a terrible thing to do anyway, there's no purpose to it other then stroking one's ego and it really should be banned.

I don't think that it is wrong that this is getting media attention. What this guy did is completely wrong. He pretty much condemned all of Cecil's cubs to death as well, all because he wanted a stupid trophy. Yes, there are a lot of horrible things going on such as what you described, ferrari2001, but there are people covering those stories and trying to help there as well. Cecil is by no means the only thing I'm seeing in the media.

As for whether this dentist knew it was illegal, I'm quite sure he knew. How can you not? It's a SANCTUARY! He's lying to try and make himself look better.

The media is dedicating their time to this because the news blew up first on social media and people care about it. Not sure what the problem is with them reporting on stuff the audience wants to know about.

Just because you don't think its a big deal does not make it not a big deal, this was a very famous special lion, and it was illegally hunted and suffered a slow death, at the hands of a wealthy American of course it is gonna be big news.

"A stupid lion getting killed" classy.

It's a mental illness. People who kill other things for fun have mental issues and should never be allowed near weapons.

I was wondering when someone was going to make a thread about this topic.

You have to ask why would you get pleasure from hunting and killing another living thing? Its not like they are doing it for food or for clothing. Its just the simple pleasure of the activity itself.

I don't know if i would enjoy hunting an animal, i don't even like killing spiders that come in the house lol, would rather catch them and put them outside.

I think we need to stop being so outraged over things like this just because we see it on social media It got to the point where he was doxxed and threatened. There's far too much knee jerking based on emotion and passion and all that serves is to keep more people in an uproar. Eventually, someone will lose their mind and try to enact justice on the person and that isn't the way for these things to pan out. As I already wrote on Facebook when the article was shared to me, I'm sick of the witch hunting. I'm sick of the "Outrage of the Week" articles we seem to lose our minds over. I'm sick to death of people bitching about shit that doesn't involve them at all, and they never lift a finger to do anything about it. I love animals, and lions are among some of my favorite, yet I'm oddly not moved at all by this jackass going off and poaching one in a far off country. Hell, even people in Zimbabwe don't seem to care that much (I know the government does, but I read an article where some citizens didn't even know who Cecil was). Enough bitching already. Focus on matters at home, do something about those matters, and if you're going to bitch about something in another country, get your ass out there and do something about it!

We need to stop being outraged? We're outraged when the neighbor's kid light on fire or kills the other neighbor's pets for fun, but if you're an adult it's OK to enjoy killing as many animals you want and even display them on your wall? These are the same sick, mentally ill people running around the streets of the u.s. with loaded weapons. If you take pleasure from killing something, you have mental problems and we should be outraged about your behavior.

Yes, stop being outraged unless you intend to intervene and turn your negative energy into a positive outcome. Like I said, some people, ALL they do, is flip out whenever they see something like this on FB, and the next week it's something new so they flip out again, and NEVER go out and do ANYTHING about it. They never organize rallies, they never reach out to the victims, never donate to causes and charities, just sit back at their keyboards and scream and swear in comment boxes and issue Twitter threats to people. It's caustic and needs to stop.

I think it's terrible that he killed that lion. Awful stuff. But **** everyone calling for this guy to be hung by his testicles and killed. Hate isnt the answer. It's a shame that this happened, but how about we take constructive approach instead of trying to destroy this person.

Holy shit, he works in Bloomington. That's literally across the Minnesota River from my city. Damn.

This guy is definitely not Minnesota Nice. :P

What are you talking about? People should'nt comdemn this asshole because they're not activists? And surely, you're aware that people actually do donate to various charities.

Personally, I've saved a cat from a bunch of shitty kids and 'm sure many people are willing to take direct action when faced with the opportuniy.

I have no problem with people hunting for meat. Even if it's done mainly as a sport, so long as the animal doesn't go to waste knock yourself out. But to hunt an animal just to hang his head in your living room, I find that moronic. I wouldn't outlaw it unless the animal is endangered though.

But seriously, what's so satisfying about killing an animal for trophy? I'd understand if the animal was hunted down with basic instruments such as a spear or a bow as it'd be an expression of one's masculinity or a display of one's strength. But what's so masculine and strong about aiming a shotgun at a lion and pulling the trigger?

Can't say for sure seeing as how I don't hunt. But in general, I notice that people have a tendency to enjoy making things or finding things or overcoming challenges. And I suspect that that's at least a part of the enjoyment that many people get from hunting. Even if you don't actually do anything with the animal, you still tracked it down and killed it. You might not feed your family with it, but you could if you wanted to. And that sort of validates a pretty basic human need to accomplish things.

Sort of like when one's 3 year old child makes a dumbass finger painting and then holds it up proudly while saying, "look at me, daddy! I did this!" And, yes you did, son. And it's garbage and you'll never be able to do anything with that piece of crap. But you did indeed do it, so I totally see why you're so happy.

Now, granted, I'm not a fan of hunting an animal and then letting that kill "go to waste". But is it really that hard to see why there might be some satisfaction in the kill itself? People spot trains, but spotting the trains doesn't feed their families. People go birdwatching, and don't even kill the bird or eat the eggs. It takes work and there's nothing tangibly acquired. But there's still a deep sense of satisfaction at simply finding the bird.

And that's that.

You can aknowledge how bad this situation is and still worry about how messed up other things in the world is. Jesus people are selfish "no shut down that issue we should worry about what i want to worry about"

@ferrari2001: The media dedicates the majority of their time to human suffering.

@Mercenary848: Thank you for pointing out the way we shutdown stories. The whole, "We can't have sympathy for this issue because we have these issues to worry about, despite the fact that, conveniently, we won't actually do anything about those issues," really doesn’t work for me.

I agree.

His brother just got killed lol.

I'm half expecting a Lion Joker to appear and reveal his plan.

@MrGeezer: The dude paid $50k for a guide and a license to find the animal and kill it. I doubt he did anything significant in the actual hunt besides pointing and shooting at it when prompted to. If he tracked this animal without help from others and technology and swiftly took it down you might have a point.

What a coward, trophy hunting should be banned. There is no excuse to hunt an animal unless for food or regulated population control.

I'm sure he had a lot of help from the locals. But, how come the latter aren't being mentioned as well? They're just as guilty. The whole hunt wouldn't be possible without help from the locals.

Actually, never mind. I just saw the part where the local help were mentioned.

It is interesting that you say that complaining is worse than doing nothing when U.S. lawmakers decided to propose a bill called the Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act to decrease trophy hunting because of the attention this has received on social media.

You treat voices of outrage on social media with scorn and triviality, yet they do make a difference.

It was not too long ago that the Confederate flag started getting removed from buildings and retail marketplaces in recent times because of the attention that the massacre by Dylann Roof received by social media, either. Whether or not you agree with the rightness of this result is secondary in importance to your point as the fact that it made a difference.

Next, social media is an extremely powerful tool of social change, but I agree that there is a definite amount of witch hunting transpiring, so to speak, with a guilty before proven innocent mentality abhorrently and with zeal acting towards the goal of social justice. It is very ironic that a social movement meant for justice is enacted with apathy and hatred. A perfect example of that is how people on Twitter treated Justine Sacco after her tweet about the unlikely event of her getting AIDS during her trip to Africa.

People lose their shit over a lion nobody but a handful of people knew about before this died.

People remain apathetic to the rampant disease, starvation and war that plagues the entire continent. Hell, most people remain apathetic towards the suffering in their own community.

Priorities people.

The underlined is something I strongly believe in. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be upset about something, but what I'm saying is people outraged need to also keep a level head, which doesn't really happen very often. The dentist's practice is closed and plastered with all kinds of threats, and that wasn't fair to his employees. His house was being harassed and that wasn't fair to his family. People have no business at all attacking someone personally. They can seek justice, but that's where their level of involvement ends. Every fucking week there's a story like Cecil, and people find someone's personal info, plaster it everywhere and call for their heads. You know, I saw a guy trying to get people to plea to a white supremacy group to hunt this Palmer guy and kill him. Fucking ridiculous! And all it stems from this ease to be outraged. We have no idea how to control ourselves, it seems.

As for the flag, that also saddens me because no one pushed for its removal before Roof used it as his rally flag for his racially driven shooting spree. People then became so focused on having the flag removed, they tricked themselves into believing that they did something good by doing so. They did nothing. All they did was take a symbol that some see simply as southern heritage and make it turn it completely vile. It was scapegoated. You can't even have a reasonable debate about the subject with someone who firmly believes it's a racist flag suggesting that isn't inherently racist even by showing them pictures of black people flying the flag. The sight of the flag fuels such anger in people now where there wasn't that level of anger before thanks to social media. It already even took a life when there was a black motorcyclist who thought it was his right to snatch the flag off the back of someone's truck and then was run down for it.

Hell, even look at the cop shootings as of late. After the deaths of Freddie Gray and Eric Garner, there was a guy who Twittered saying that he was going to take "two of them for taking two of us". He went out and shot two cops after that, and the irony of the situation was they weren't even white! You're right. Social media is an extremely powerful tool of social change, but that's the problem. It's too accessible for too many people who can't reel in their emotions and think with reason. We lose focus and can't come together constructively enough.

And this is a pretty good article.

I'm glad that there are things like social media these days so that people all over the world can make their voices heard. By using it people are indeed doing something and are affecting change by doing so. No longer will tragedies such as this be unknown by the larger whole.

I'd beg to differ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-worlds-10-hungriest-countries/

Sure... starvation and disease is a huge problem in most developing countries, but Africa is suffering the worst of it, and has been for a long time.

Did you even open the links? The highest concentration of HIV/AIDS in the world is in almost the entirety of the continent. And 8 of the 10 "hungriest" countries are in Africa.

Nearly half the country has infection ranges between 1 and 50%. Most of the rest of the world is below 0.5%.

You seem like you are trying to make an argument for argument's sake. My point was relating directly to Africa in that people care more about a damn lion than the human beings that live on the continent where the lion is from.

On top of that, I also mentioned people's own communities, negating any point you might have had about me ignoring the rest of the world.

Just stop.

@JustPlainLucas:Good post.

I recommend watching Jon Ronson's TED Talk called "How One Tweet Can Ruin Your Life." It talks about the relevance of social media and its consequences.

I wonder, would you hold that same attitude if you made a mistake and someone on Facebook wanted you vilified and then you had an angry mob at your doorstep? Social media is also an accelerant when it comes to bullying. Many kids have killed themselves because they were unable to escape the bullying at school, since it would be right there in their houses in the form of social media.

Thanks.

I love TED Talks! I'll have to watch that one.

"Significant" really only matters to the person doing the activity. I mean, I don't think it's "significant" for a Pokemon player to try to "catch 'em all". A lot of people collect seashells, and their involvement amounts to walking along the beach. They don't track the shells down, they just walk by and pick up whatever the waves happen to place within their path.

@JustPlainLucas: It's not perfect and I have little tolerance for bullying but overall I think that social media is very much a positive and I am glad that it is available for people to have a voice and to affect change wherever they may be.

@JustPlainLucas: "I think we need to stop being so outraged over things like this just because we see it on social media It got to the point where he was doxxed and threatened"

Hmm he lured a very much loved lion out of its sanctuary, then illegally shot it with an arrow, tracked it for 40hrs while it died slowly, then skinned it and chopped off its head simply for his own pleasure, and you say we shouldn't be outraged just because we haven't all got time to go out and organise rallies etc.

Any hate that this guy is getting was brought on by his own actions.

Priorities?

Just because people are expressing their outrage about this story it doesn't mean nobody gives a crap about other terrible things happening in the world.

So going by your logic we are not allowed to be outraged by a story like this untill all the human suffering in the world has come to an end.

Ted Nugent comments on the story