It is amazing how everyone can jump on this wave of political bandwagon, including the government in Zimbabwe, without really acknowledging the irony that much more terrible things have happened in Zimbabwe in the past 20 years without nearly the same outcry. Massive hyperinflation, people starving to death, and we suddenly have tears in the West over "Cecile the lion". The corrupt government of Zimbabwe is quick to wipe away our tears and assure us that this will never happen again, all the while continuing to neglect their human citizens. I can agree that big game hunting is stupid and wasteful, but killing a lion simply isn't that big of a deal, not in the grand scheme of things, and not when we rely every day on the deaths of millions of cattle to provide us food. That's just cognitive dissonance. If anything, the doctor was paying a high price for a stupid hobby, which ultimately benefits the local people of Zimbabwe. How many people in Zimbabwe can be fed for $25,000, the price of hunting a male lion?
Basically "Vivid, flesh and blood-victims are often more powerful sources of persuasion than abstract statistic". Most people love Lions and think they are awesome, and hate seeing them caged in zoos. Now we hear about this one lion minding it's own business being lured from a preserve and being killed by some rich American guy .... the lion becomes the flesh and blood victim. Problem like hyperinflation and massive death, while obviously much worse (and horrible) are much harder for the human mind to understand and just become a statistic.
It is extremely scary that this is a problem but it is fairly well known and studied. Stalin even knew about the problem:
"one man's death is a tragedy, a millions deaths are a statistic"
I obviously agree with you, just pointing you to why it is happening.
The elephant in the living room is that the outcry about Cecil the Lion was a form of 'Virtue Signaling.' When people express outrage over something that 'no good person could be for' they do it as a way of forming in-group cohesion.
The article this thread is associated with shows that different groups can rally around different values. If you were from that man's family in Zimbabwe you clearly would have a different take on it and use different 'virtue signals.'
But people have not been ignoring it. I have been hearing about it for years. Why is no American actually up in arms about the Zimbabwean government?
1) It is an ongoing problem, not an isolated incident.
2) There is an easy resolution to people from the U.S. flying down there to go hunting that the dept of Justice can implement. Solving the Zimbabwean government's corruption requires more resources than the DoD and state department have available. Americans, particularly those who came of age politically in 2003-2007 are deeply suspicious of our ability to enact regime change.
3) This was the straightforward fault of an American. However the U.S. bears zero responsibility for Mugabe's actions unless you blame the U.S. for pressuring Ian Smith to resign.
4) There are small numbers of Americans that are upset about the fall of the Rhodesian government, but they irredeemably associated with murderous racism in the eyes of most Americans. Thus, there is no simple narrative that mainstream Americans can put forth as a solution or thing-that-should-have-been-done.
EDIT:
People with no responsibility for causing the situation, no clear path to fix the situation, and only the power to create an atrociously bloody mess of the situation cannot be faulted for only being passively aware of the situation.
It is not invalid to care about something just because there are also more important things in the world.
It is not invalid to be saddened by something just because there are worse things happening in the world.
Hopefully, though, this will shed some light on the situation in Zimbabwe. Seems like the country's a mess and lions don't have much to do with it either way.
I think there's a risk of dismissing a sentiment you don't understand as therefore being irrational vs being something that you simply don't understand. To play Devil's advocate here we have always had the problems you mention and most likely always will; at least for a very long time. But there's a very real chance (and very soon) that we won't have these magnificent creatures like Lions/Rhinos/Elephants etc. The killing of a lion like Cecil (tagged, well known) increases that sense of urgency and concern that we seem unable to save these creatures from hunters and poachers. These are not renewable resources like cattle or chicken.
Secondly so many big problems are complex with multiple contributing factors and it's hard to tell the victim from the perpetrator and often times those roles change over time. Cecil's killing, much like the killing of a child, is very black and white. He was lured with game, shot with an arrow, suffered pain for 40 hours and was then shot and beheaded. There's no shades of gray in there like "Was he or she in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did they do something to contribute to their own demise via their behaviour? Are we going to find out some new fact in this case in 72 hours or at the trial that makes us realize there's more to this victim than we thought?"
I think it's this sense of losing for ever combined with the lack of any ambiguity that creates such a strong response. To address your post it is logical and explainable. You may not agree with it but it's certainly not irrational behavior.
It's not at all amazing: it is because Cecil's story is representative of just how flagrantly fucked up a situation exists, and Cecil's story is, of the countless such involving people and culture and animals, so very easy to tell.
Is it valid to go meta and ask the same questions about the incredulity about the coverage? I.e. there are numerous more egregious examples of people getting outraged about relatively unimportant stuff while ignoring important stuff, so why is everybody getting upset at the disproportionate outrage over Cecil the Lion?
> It is amazing how everyone can jump on this wave of political bandwagon, including the government in Zimbabwe
The government isn't, really. They're issuing a temporary moratorium until the media attention dies down. They don't actually care; they're just playing the media.
In other words, they're doing the cynical thing to get the media off their backs until the story blows over, and then it'll be business as usual again (and like any other tempest in a teapot, nobody's going to care anymore by the end of August).
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if worse things were being caused in Zimbabwe by a rich American dentist then they would probably have caused their own band wagon. It's not just the poaching, it's that it was literally a holiday for a rich white guy who wanted to kill something.
I think that people channel their repressed opinions of the world, my job, diet, lifestyle, etc. is killing the planet, burning the ozone, supporting child slavery, whatever, into causes where they have the rare ability to have their real and ideal values match. I haven't hunted a lion and therefore I can speak from a moral high ground, blah blah blah.
The cognitive dissonance you cite disappears completely if we accept the uncomfortable elephant in the room: we value the remaining animals far more than we value human life. And isn't that normal when there are 7 billion of us and 30 000 of them?
>Don’t tell us what to do with our animals when you allowed your own mountain lions to be hunted to near extinction in the eastern United States. Don’t bemoan the clear-cutting of our forests when you turned yours into concrete jungles.
So don't learn from our mistakes, basically?
This is among the most ignorant things I have ever read. Terrible article from a person with a terrible mentality.
If people are hitting the paywall the gist of the article is that lions are dangerous animals. People living in rural village are terrorized by lions and it has a serious impact on their way of life. Zimbabweans have a lot of respect for wild animals but aren't opposed to them being hunted. America once again stirred up a social media frenzy when they don't understand the issue at all.
> America once again stirred up a social media frenzy when they don't understand the issue at all.
Except that America stirred up this issue only because it was done by a rich American. Zimbabwe aided by claiming it was an illegal poaching, arresting the guides and then asking America to arrest and extradite Walter Palmer.
Lions are scary when they aren't in a national park and being monitored by research scientists, but that's not what happened. This would be like a foreign tourist luring a wolf out of Yellowstone and then killing it outside of the park boundaries. It's straight up illegal poaching.
I take issue with the thought of conservation only being necessary for cute, cuddly animals. There are significant benefits of maintaining biodiversity in the various biomes.
This is what people understand - Lion Conservation status: Vulnerable
"The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a major population decline in its African range of 30–50% per two decades during the second half of the 20th century. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern."
I would say that the locals dont understand the issue any further than how it affects their own personal bubble.
They dont own the Lions, the Lions happen to live within the same lines drawn on a map as they do. The Lions neither know about or care about these lines. That in no way makes these Lions the propery of people from Zimbabwe.
In the same way that the rainforest destruction is everyones problem, not just a problem for those living in the rainforest.
> People living in rural village are terrorized by lions and it has a serious impact on their way of life.
Isn't this due to the explosion of human population levels though? We're encroaching more and more on the natural habitat of pretty much every species on the planet except for those in the deep ocean and even they are affected by us in other ways.
Honestly Zimbabwe has so many problems a lion dying is not a big issue. Hell Zimbabwe children were being tied up and set on fire a few months ago in South Africa[0].
the animals aren't yours or anybody else's. They belong to that planet which we just happen to share. Human race, having achieved the ability to destroy the planet's eco-sphere, thus got a duty of steward of the eco-sphere which it has been carrying poorly so far.
Anyway, killing big game this days is a serious mental sickness.
Cyanobacteria achieved the ability to destroy the ecosphere and actually did it, leading to one of the greatest mass extinctions in history.
Did they have the "duty of a steward" regarding the ecosphere?
No. Neither do humans. There is no such duty.
We would be wise to maintain an ecosphere we find livable and convenient. Possibly, even probably, this includes protecting natural diversity and endangered species. We don't have to, of course. Humans are organisms like any other and organisms often engage in behavior that leads to their eventual extinction. I personally would also prefer that we try to maintain 'natural' ecosystems and diversity as much as possible. But that is merely a preference.
In nature, might makes right. We're a part of nature like any other. Killing big game (even for recreation, not just for food), a human behavior that goes back hundreds of thousands of years, is certainly not a mental illness. It might be wise (if you have the preferences mentioned above) to institute laws and norms against engaging in that behavior, particularly towards vulnerable species, but that doesn't make it an illness.
It's a pity there is so much confusion between 1) how foreigners reacted to the incident, 2) the problem of endangered species and violated habitats and 3) the poor situation of the locals. It seems nearly impossible to have a rational conversation about a damn lion while these three things aren't considered separately first. Yeah, I've tried to read the article's comments, my bad...
I've been trying for weeks to start an honest discussion on the Internet about a hunter's role in conservation. At almost every turn I get hit with the "he's a poacher" stick!
Can we just forget about the dentist? He's not a poacher! Maybe he's just a bad person?! No one really knows. But he's not a poacher.
/*
If you want to see what a poacher does and if you don't want to sleep for a few days then just ask me for a video of a live Rhino, suffering, with half it's face chainsawed off for his horn... (Brings me half to tears to just describe the video!)
*/
He's not what's important here. People are loving the animals that they care about to death. They're so against someone killing them that they're hurting the hunting, and in turn, the conservation industry.
One of the most beloved people on Earth, Nelson Mandela, hunted and described the benefits that hunting had on conversation: http://imgur.com/a/ZJ0QK
Nelson is cited for marketability, for the real numbers there are plenty of credible sources and institutions that'll provide the same information.
... Well except that Zimbabwe is trying to extradite the dentist for poaching. The lion was in a national park that brings in significant tourism dollars for the state, they quite literally were crying for this lion.
It is way different having to kill a lion that is making life in your village miserable to having this foreigner come in and do it for "fun" disregarding the laws of your country. One thing doesn't excuse the other.
Having said that, he is right on " ... don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed ..."
The best way to turn me off of a cause is to see a bunch of people soapboxing on facebook/twitter. Regardless of whether or not I agree with Cecil the lion being hunted down, the internet mob is disgusting.
I find all these articles that try to compare and measure sympathy and emotion as pointless. People are comparing the outpouring of grief for Cecil to apathy towards human killings and inhuman treatment of animals in the meat industry. A person can be severely depressed if they lose a dog, and another can show no emotion when they lose a parent. You can't compare human emotion because it's not always rational.
In this specific case though, I would also argue given the declining numbers of lions, the anger is justified.
I tend to think that human emotion was not rational by definition (and by not rational I mean uncorrelated not negatively correlated). Of course "not rational" is not synonymous of bad or superfluous.
I grew up in small town in eastern part of India, where Tigers were rolling on the streets and wild elephants were more dangerous than any other animal. Just dont piss them off, that was told to anyone new in that area. My dad use to take me to elephant(trained off course) rides into the jungle(the real jungle) to watch tigers and all other wild animals. I started to enjoy it more and more. My uncle was a forest ranger and had a tiger cub, so I played with him every weekend or whenever I get a chance to visit him. One day I came to know a tiger was shot dead by "some guy" as kid I felt really bad, I was like "why kill a tiger for no reason?" I was more surprised when the local people were really sad about this. Like, they have develop some kind of affection to this animals, no matter how deadly they can be. An unspoken bond between the people and the wild animals. Off course the government was not going to investigate much about it, because of local corrupt officials. Officials were more concerned about food, jobs, education and medical facilities. Which took more highlight than the killing a tiger, which for majority of people in that locality was a big deal.
I live near Vancouver in BC. We still have large mammal wildlife, grizzly bears, black bears, Cougars. They are killed by park rangers or police if they become comfortable in the human world. You can also pay to go on grizzly hunting trips further north in the province. We have just as far to go as we want Zimbabwe too.
But just because it's the same here, and because there are worse things there, can't we just agree that culling these magnificent animals should be done by officials as the grim task it is, and not by rich for recreation?
Lions that attack villagers do have to be killed sadly, but why not embrace Eco tourism instead of trophy hunting for the ones that are not a threat?
Do Zimbabwe villagers live in denser cover? If so, maybe sport hunting increase the threat by forcing lions closer to villagers? That would add a bit of irony to the situation.
The frankly appalling discussion going on over at the nyt's comments section with first world environmentalists saying the author and the rest of that third world people should just "move to the city" without even the slightness sign of empathy towards people who make less in a year than what many nyt readers make in a day ironically reminds me of the attitude many far-right US nationals have regarding immigration. Basically most of them simply ignore the realities of the immigration process and honestly believe that people can just walk to the nearest US embassy and request a greencard and that the reason there are so many illegals its simply because they wont do that.
Of course even a glimpse at the US visa system shows that there is no such option, that many visas are just temporary and tied to employment or studies that will eventually end, and honestly the only real option left is to just marry a US citizen, an option which is already becoming more and more difficult. The far-right is unwilling to understand this and how if their grandfathers in the 20th century had been faced with these strict immigration rules they would been forced to return home and stay there when in reality many came here unannounced and uninvited, just as illegals do today.
Back to the lion issue, the problem with this line of thinking that rejects the idea that opinions from outside the US hold any value nor should be considered at all is that it doesn't solves the problem. Hunting in Zimbabwe, a dirt-poor country with a collapsed economy, its actually the only way some people have to make a living. US environmentalists much like the far-right don't share that problem with the other side and thus can afford the luxury of disregarding their suffering and even ask the foreigners for further sacrifices so they don't have to admit they were dead wrong.
No problem, you will cry for lions in the future, probably.
"Using the calculations of Hayward et al. (2007), biomass density of preferred lion prey in Gonarezhou national park was calculated... the protected area could support enough preys for between 115 and 357 lions.
... the 2014 census found 33 lions in the protected area.
Lions where positive only in the 5% of the points analyzed in the census.
For the Tuli Safari Area the scientific model predict a population of about 40 lions and the 2014 census found...
zero lions
Source: "Surveys of lions Panthera leo in protected areas in Zimbabwe yield disturbing results: what is driving
the population collapse?" Groom et al. 2014.
Models also predict that the park could support a population of Hyaena of 354 animals... 2014 census found between 400-490 hyaena in the national park instead.
This is hardly a surprise because is the same ecological rule for the whole freaking planet earth: Mesocarnivore liberation. Same that leads to the american coyote, and the english fox and the jackals now expanding to the west and reconquering Europe. You are bassically destroying the big fauna in cascade. A really expensive mistake.
> How many people in Zimbabwe can be fed for $25,000, the price of hunting a male lion?
This will depend on how many money and goats they have still after figthing the strange new hyaenas plague. And don't forget the bovine tuberculosis also.
Ok I have one idea, If we wipped the local lion pride we could kill also those 50 new hyaenas!.
(some months later) end of the hyaena problem, hum, how this new 500 jackals appeared?
Though I don't care much about the subject in general, I'm already tired of this backlash against the backlash. :/
However yes, we can be angry about the Cecil incident. It went viral for whatever reason, other incidents didn't. That's the nature of social media, you'll have to get used to it. No, we don't have to "fix" Zimbabwe or the world before being angry at one needless death, thanks.
The author's point about lions scaring villagers when he was young is interesting yet not a justification, these lions are now in a reserve and the species is now vulnerable, if not soon to be endangered.
Of course behind the words there is always the lingering self-serving idea that people are so much more important than our cousins in the animal kingdom. Well, guess what at 7 billion vs. 25k lions, which population could use a little thinning?
[+] [-] mjfl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misiti3780|10 years ago|reply
http://danariely.com/2011/10/06/upside-of-irrationality-chap...
It is a known problem in behavioral economics called the identifiable victim effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifiable_victim_effect
Basically "Vivid, flesh and blood-victims are often more powerful sources of persuasion than abstract statistic". Most people love Lions and think they are awesome, and hate seeing them caged in zoos. Now we hear about this one lion minding it's own business being lured from a preserve and being killed by some rich American guy .... the lion becomes the flesh and blood victim. Problem like hyperinflation and massive death, while obviously much worse (and horrible) are much harder for the human mind to understand and just become a statistic.
It is extremely scary that this is a problem but it is fairly well known and studied. Stalin even knew about the problem:
"one man's death is a tragedy, a millions deaths are a statistic"
I obviously agree with you, just pointing you to why it is happening.
[+] [-] golemotron|10 years ago|reply
http://playingwordgames.com/2015/04/signalling-virtue/
The article this thread is associated with shows that different groups can rally around different values. If you were from that man's family in Zimbabwe you clearly would have a different take on it and use different 'virtue signals.'
[+] [-] afarrell|10 years ago|reply
1) It is an ongoing problem, not an isolated incident.
2) There is an easy resolution to people from the U.S. flying down there to go hunting that the dept of Justice can implement. Solving the Zimbabwean government's corruption requires more resources than the DoD and state department have available. Americans, particularly those who came of age politically in 2003-2007 are deeply suspicious of our ability to enact regime change.
3) This was the straightforward fault of an American. However the U.S. bears zero responsibility for Mugabe's actions unless you blame the U.S. for pressuring Ian Smith to resign.
4) There are small numbers of Americans that are upset about the fall of the Rhodesian government, but they irredeemably associated with murderous racism in the eyes of most Americans. Thus, there is no simple narrative that mainstream Americans can put forth as a solution or thing-that-should-have-been-done.
EDIT: People with no responsibility for causing the situation, no clear path to fix the situation, and only the power to create an atrociously bloody mess of the situation cannot be faulted for only being passively aware of the situation.
[+] [-] chasing|10 years ago|reply
It is not invalid to be saddened by something just because there are worse things happening in the world.
Hopefully, though, this will shed some light on the situation in Zimbabwe. Seems like the country's a mess and lions don't have much to do with it either way.
[+] [-] jusben1369|10 years ago|reply
Secondly so many big problems are complex with multiple contributing factors and it's hard to tell the victim from the perpetrator and often times those roles change over time. Cecil's killing, much like the killing of a child, is very black and white. He was lured with game, shot with an arrow, suffered pain for 40 hours and was then shot and beheaded. There's no shades of gray in there like "Was he or she in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did they do something to contribute to their own demise via their behaviour? Are we going to find out some new fact in this case in 72 hours or at the trial that makes us realize there's more to this victim than we thought?"
I think it's this sense of losing for ever combined with the lack of any ambiguity that creates such a strong response. To address your post it is logical and explainable. You may not agree with it but it's certainly not irrational behavior.
[+] [-] jjtheblunt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amyjess|10 years ago|reply
The government isn't, really. They're issuing a temporary moratorium until the media attention dies down. They don't actually care; they're just playing the media.
In other words, they're doing the cynical thing to get the media off their backs until the story blows over, and then it'll be business as usual again (and like any other tempest in a teapot, nobody's going to care anymore by the end of August).
[+] [-] jonknee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buckbova|10 years ago|reply
My theory is the average person doesn't cognitively absorb the human suffering because there's more guilt associated with it.
[+] [-] werber|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motxilo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vegabook|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlesray|10 years ago|reply
So don't learn from our mistakes, basically?
This is among the most ignorant things I have ever read. Terrible article from a person with a terrible mentality.
[+] [-] chipgap98|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|10 years ago|reply
Except that America stirred up this issue only because it was done by a rich American. Zimbabwe aided by claiming it was an illegal poaching, arresting the guides and then asking America to arrest and extradite Walter Palmer.
Lions are scary when they aren't in a national park and being monitored by research scientists, but that's not what happened. This would be like a foreign tourist luring a wolf out of Yellowstone and then killing it outside of the park boundaries. It's straight up illegal poaching.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|10 years ago|reply
This is what people understand - Lion Conservation status: Vulnerable
"The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a major population decline in its African range of 30–50% per two decades during the second half of the 20th century. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion
[+] [-] celticninja|10 years ago|reply
They dont own the Lions, the Lions happen to live within the same lines drawn on a map as they do. The Lions neither know about or care about these lines. That in no way makes these Lions the propery of people from Zimbabwe.
In the same way that the rainforest destruction is everyones problem, not just a problem for those living in the rainforest.
[+] [-] ionised|10 years ago|reply
Isn't this due to the explosion of human population levels though? We're encroaching more and more on the natural habitat of pretty much every species on the planet except for those in the deep ocean and even they are affected by us in other ways.
[+] [-] pbreit|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 7Z7|10 years ago|reply
There are several issues. Not just one.
[+] [-] leothekim|10 years ago|reply
That's on point.
[+] [-] wehadfun|10 years ago|reply
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyX4aOd_2BY
[+] [-] trhway|10 years ago|reply
the animals aren't yours or anybody else's. They belong to that planet which we just happen to share. Human race, having achieved the ability to destroy the planet's eco-sphere, thus got a duty of steward of the eco-sphere which it has been carrying poorly so far.
Anyway, killing big game this days is a serious mental sickness.
[+] [-] DamnYuppie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Amezarak|10 years ago|reply
Did they have the "duty of a steward" regarding the ecosphere?
No. Neither do humans. There is no such duty.
We would be wise to maintain an ecosphere we find livable and convenient. Possibly, even probably, this includes protecting natural diversity and endangered species. We don't have to, of course. Humans are organisms like any other and organisms often engage in behavior that leads to their eventual extinction. I personally would also prefer that we try to maintain 'natural' ecosystems and diversity as much as possible. But that is merely a preference.
In nature, might makes right. We're a part of nature like any other. Killing big game (even for recreation, not just for food), a human behavior that goes back hundreds of thousands of years, is certainly not a mental illness. It might be wise (if you have the preferences mentioned above) to institute laws and norms against engaging in that behavior, particularly towards vulnerable species, but that doesn't make it an illness.
[+] [-] acjacobson|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] caio1982|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pistoriusp|10 years ago|reply
Can we just forget about the dentist? He's not a poacher! Maybe he's just a bad person?! No one really knows. But he's not a poacher.
/* If you want to see what a poacher does and if you don't want to sleep for a few days then just ask me for a video of a live Rhino, suffering, with half it's face chainsawed off for his horn... (Brings me half to tears to just describe the video!) */
He's not what's important here. People are loving the animals that they care about to death. They're so against someone killing them that they're hurting the hunting, and in turn, the conservation industry.
One of the most beloved people on Earth, Nelson Mandela, hunted and described the benefits that hunting had on conversation: http://imgur.com/a/ZJ0QK
Nelson is cited for marketability, for the real numbers there are plenty of credible sources and institutions that'll provide the same information.
[+] [-] jonknee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lentil_soup|10 years ago|reply
Having said that, he is right on " ... don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed ..."
[+] [-] S_A_P|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ub|10 years ago|reply
In this specific case though, I would also argue given the declining numbers of lions, the anger is justified.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] primroot|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 64bitbrain|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinhj|10 years ago|reply
But just because it's the same here, and because there are worse things there, can't we just agree that culling these magnificent animals should be done by officials as the grim task it is, and not by rich for recreation?
Lions that attack villagers do have to be killed sadly, but why not embrace Eco tourism instead of trophy hunting for the ones that are not a threat?
[+] [-] musesum|10 years ago|reply
Some conjecture:
Do Zimbabwe villagers live in denser cover? If so, maybe sport hunting increase the threat by forcing lions closer to villagers? That would add a bit of irony to the situation.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] theafrican|10 years ago|reply
Of course even a glimpse at the US visa system shows that there is no such option, that many visas are just temporary and tied to employment or studies that will eventually end, and honestly the only real option left is to just marry a US citizen, an option which is already becoming more and more difficult. The far-right is unwilling to understand this and how if their grandfathers in the 20th century had been faced with these strict immigration rules they would been forced to return home and stay there when in reality many came here unannounced and uninvited, just as illegals do today.
Back to the lion issue, the problem with this line of thinking that rejects the idea that opinions from outside the US hold any value nor should be considered at all is that it doesn't solves the problem. Hunting in Zimbabwe, a dirt-poor country with a collapsed economy, its actually the only way some people have to make a living. US environmentalists much like the far-right don't share that problem with the other side and thus can afford the luxury of disregarding their suffering and even ask the foreigners for further sacrifices so they don't have to admit they were dead wrong.
[+] [-] pvaldes|10 years ago|reply
"Using the calculations of Hayward et al. (2007), biomass density of preferred lion prey in Gonarezhou national park was calculated... the protected area could support enough preys for between 115 and 357 lions.
... the 2014 census found 33 lions in the protected area.
Lions where positive only in the 5% of the points analyzed in the census.
For the Tuli Safari Area the scientific model predict a population of about 40 lions and the 2014 census found...
zero lions
Source: "Surveys of lions Panthera leo in protected areas in Zimbabwe yield disturbing results: what is driving the population collapse?" Groom et al. 2014.
Models also predict that the park could support a population of Hyaena of 354 animals... 2014 census found between 400-490 hyaena in the national park instead.
This is hardly a surprise because is the same ecological rule for the whole freaking planet earth: Mesocarnivore liberation. Same that leads to the american coyote, and the english fox and the jackals now expanding to the west and reconquering Europe. You are bassically destroying the big fauna in cascade. A really expensive mistake.
> How many people in Zimbabwe can be fed for $25,000, the price of hunting a male lion?
This will depend on how many money and goats they have still after figthing the strange new hyaenas plague. And don't forget the bovine tuberculosis also.
Ok I have one idea, If we wipped the local lion pride we could kill also those 50 new hyaenas!.
(some months later) end of the hyaena problem, hum, how this new 500 jackals appeared?
[+] [-] skylan_q|10 years ago|reply
How are there 7 billion of us when we hate ourselves and each other so much?
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|10 years ago|reply
However yes, we can be angry about the Cecil incident. It went viral for whatever reason, other incidents didn't. That's the nature of social media, you'll have to get used to it. No, we don't have to "fix" Zimbabwe or the world before being angry at one needless death, thanks.
The author's point about lions scaring villagers when he was young is interesting yet not a justification, these lions are now in a reserve and the species is now vulnerable, if not soon to be endangered. Of course behind the words there is always the lingering self-serving idea that people are so much more important than our cousins in the animal kingdom. Well, guess what at 7 billion vs. 25k lions, which population could use a little thinning?