Last week a rich white male dentist called Walter Palmer killed a much loved lion, called Cecil. The incident touched a nerve worldwide, with Jimmy Kimmel almost crying on live television and a host of celebrities tweeting their outrage. The local guides were arrested, Palmer is in hiding and his dental practise closed, with protestors outside. On social media, he became a focus of a sustained campaign and has still yet to break cover, apart from a statement saying he didn't know it was a protected animal and apologising to his patients for the the disruption to their appointments.
Many articles have pointed out how irrational this public response is and ask why should one dumb animal attract more sympathy than the migrant crisis in Calais. There have also been a number of pieces claiming that big game hunting provides much needed hard currency income for African nations. Others have called the media storm about Palmer extreme, a witch-hunt, where the rage is out of proportion to the offence.
I think much of the commentary misses the point as it so often does with this type of event.
Let's start with the idea that the killing of one lion, who despite his majestic and fearsome appearance, was named Cecil, a moniker more suited to a retired, camp cruise ship entertainer who lives in a village somewhere in the Home Counties and organises amateur dramatics. Odd names aside, why should one lion's killing make headlines, when the bloodshed continues in Syria?
If humans were entirely rational creatures, like Dr Spock from the Planet Vulcan, then our response to events would be a matter of calculation - like a robot processing data. But we are not entirely rational, we are rational enough to go about our daily lives not murdering people who annoy us but not rational enough to know that the point when you order a sambucca at a bar is half an hour after you should have stopped drinking and gone home.
There are times when we should embrace the irrational or emotional side of our natures, this is one of those occasions. It may be just a lion, but it's death is also a symbol. You can't think about lions, or wildlife in genera,l in terms of numbers or abstract concepts such as conservation. Our minds don't work that way and when a wealthy, most likely sociopathic Westerner kills a beautiful animal that was a favourite with park visitors, for no other reason than to feed his dysfunctional ego, then we should feel a sense of grief and anger. Perhaps it's displaced guilt, as we all know that humans have been poor custodians of the planet in the industrial age.
Or is it the simple fact that a creature of beauty that stirred a deep, primal reaction in all those who saw him is now gone - killed in a cowardly and protracted manner by someone who must have known on one level what he was doing was wrong. Killing a male lion, without knowing its role in the pride risks the death of his cubs, if the male was dominant. His successor takes charge and culls the cubs that aren't his bloodline. The guides with Palmer would know this, so must Palmer if he has even the most basic knowledge of lion behaviour. Even in the dark, Cecil's size and age would be apparent. At the moment he fired, Palmer knew he was doing wrong and didn't care.
Palmer apparently did not discuss his hobby with his patients; he was aware most people view the hunting of big game with disgust. He also uses a bow and arrow, which maybe in his own mind makes him seem heroic. If he'd had the balls to kill Cecil with a spear, close up and personal, then at least you could say the man was brave. But he was firing in the dark, from a concealed position, at an animal that was lured out by bait. Despite his professed bow-skills, he couldn't even manage a clean kill. And let's not forget that arrows make little sound. So here's someone who claims he has a legal hunting permit, yet chooses to make the kill on a private farm at night, with a weapon that is far less lethal than a gun, but has the one virtue of silence. What's that I can smell? Oh yes, that's right, bullshit.
Speaking of bullshit, then there is no better example than the alleged link between conservation and big game hunting. There is an industry where animals are bred for the big game hunters, 'canned' game as it were. But that's got nothing to with conservation, neither have grouse moors. The animals are bred to be killed, you are not conserving endangered wild species. You could argue that it provides incomes for locals, though the link is doubtful.
The case made for hunting in the wild, i.e not canned, is that it generates income for locals and makes them value game animals. Except this is Africa we're talking about, so when a big game hunter hands over a large amount of hard currency to a government official, a park owner or a guide, how much of that money actually goes to locals or towards any kind of conservation activity? The government of Tanzania says that big game hunting brings in £71 million. I can believe the money is received by the officials working in the government of Tanzania, that's all I can believe. It's hard to think of an activity more open to bribery, corruption and outright theft than the selling of these permits; one less likely to produce a trickle down effect. Safari parks encourage preservation of big game, provide far more job opportunities and are less prone to abuses. There is no paradox about big game hunting being a part of conservation, because it's bullshit or rather bull rhino shit.
Then there's the social media witch-hunt. Now I used to think witch-hunts were always wrong, it's mob justice and should have no place in civilised society. In the case of Palmer, I've changed my mind. Here's a case where an evil-doer would most likely escape any negative consequences for his action, were it not for the power of social media. He won't go to prison, he won't be harmed but his reputation is ruined and his business will suffer severe losses. It's safe to assume that the kind of man who posts pictures online of himself, bare-chested with a dead leopard in his arms, is an advocate of personal freedom and individual choice. Palmer made his choices; he can live with the consequences. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. If this witch-hunt serves as a deterrent to other big game hunters, then at least some good will come of it.
One final thought. A few commentators noted how much social attitudes have changed to big game hunting in the last 80 years, as if this were somehow evidence of hypocrisy or mitigation for Palmer's actions. Unless Palmer had time-travelled from 1935, it's a facile observation. We're not judging a 1935 hunter, we're judging a 2015 hunter. Lots of other attitudes have changed in the last 70 years, it's no longer acceptable to use racially abuse people, to hit your spouse, to colonise other countries, to sterilise social undesirables, to beat otters to death for fun, to attempt to cure gay people or to sexually assault women in the workplace to name but a few of the changes to cultural norms. Apart from extremists and sociopaths, we all understand the new moral code and why those changes occurred. In due course, it's likely that factory farming of animals will be banned. Views and attitudes change, very often for the better. And there should be no place in the modern world for the trophy hunting of big game, it debases and degrades all of us by association.
