Animal Rights and awareness issues - 2015

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

He's very popular on yelp. Read the stellar reviews. Before this incident, he probably had 10 reviews. Now he has over 5000 reviews. I hope they extradite him to Zimbabwe and lock him up for 10 years. That probably won't happen but I think he will end up paying for what he did in one way or another.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/river-bluff-dental-bloomington

I hope you're right, Rupert. I would like him to be extradited to Zimbabwe (the US and Zimbabwe have a pretty generous extradition agreement with each other), but I suspect he'll pay a fine (which, since he can apparently afford $55,000 to hunt lions is not likely to be a hard financial hit on him) and that will be that. I think the court of public opinion is the only place he's likely to see any real financial damages, if it keeps people away from him as a dentist.

I'm not opposed to hunting (it preserves open wilderness, and hey, venison is freaking delicious), but I do not, do not, understand the obsession with hunting big game, especially predators. As was pointed out in another site following this story, lions aren't exactly challenging sport. They live in groups, so they aren't as aggressive as say, tigers, who are solitary, and in this case, Cecil was a particularly docile one who was accustomed to people, making him an easier target. There's no courage in "sport" like this; it's just an insecure little man trying to make himself feel like a tough guy.

Not to mention, the guy has killed a bear illegally (and then lied about it), and was fined for fishing without a license. He'll pay over 50K to kill a lion, but is too cheap to buy a fishing license. What a reprehensible human being. There is no way he didn't know the lion was being hunted illegally.

Plus, the young male who was part of the pride will probably now kill Cecil's six cubs, as that IS part of the natural cycle. Nice work, dentist. You killed seven lions for the price of one. Ugh.