The world, or at least the World of the Internets, is furious with the Minnesota dentist who stupidly killed Cecil the Lion. (How you shoot a huge lion with a tracking collar and claim to think it was, literally, fair game, I’ll never know.)
Trophy hunting is just an ego-centric pastime for men and women who are living some sort of Great White Hunter fantasy. While I’m no fan of trophy hunting, I think we should save some vitriol for ourselves. Sure, it’s a tragedy to kill huge majestic animals in Africa, but we’re killing off plenty of important species every day, albeit in a much less showy fashion.
In most cases we probably don’t even know we’re doing it, but once you start looking, we’re killing plenty of animals in our daily lives. (And I’m not talking about the meat-eater vs. vegan debate.) Do you like cookies, sweets and snack foods? Chances are they contain palm oil, which is devastating forests in Indonesia and Malaysia and is killing orangutans. Tuna fish sandwich? You’re probably also killing sharks and sea turtles. Even though many of these species don’t look as impressive when they’re stuffed, they are vital to the biodiversity of our planet. Learn more about what food choices you can make and what else you can do so you don’t slaughter animals the way a trophy hunter does. And as usual, you can find more links here on my site.
