American Dentist kills Endangered Lion in Zimbabwe.

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Officials are looking for him but his whereabouts are unknown at this time. What a selfish man! It is rumoured he bribed wildlife guides to gain access to the animal.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... dited.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ials-claim

Hope they catch him.

The detective who catches him should be allowed to...mount the dentist's head on the wall of the precinct office!

Its desperate enough to defend Africa's wildlife from starving poor Africans. So when an affluent Americans does something like that it needs to be punished to set an example.

Nothing wrong with killing lions as long as it's done legally and the money goes to conservation. No one cares when they step on a bug, but as soon as it's a cute cuddly lion, it's now a big deal.

In this case, it appears there's some legal shoddiness going down by the land owner (innocent till proven guilty, though; I wouldn't trust the Zimbabwe justice system at all).

Right now they are trying to get the lion declared an endangered species in the US, and they will make a decision in the fall. Right now it's official designation is "threatened." So you think it's fine and dandy to trophy kill a species that's been declared threatened, meaning it's numbers are so low it could be declared endangered soon enough?

If the money goes to saving the species, then you bet I'm for killing individual lions.

However, if you kill enough individual lions (dot dot dot.) It becomes endangered. The same thing happened to the Ivory Billed Woodpecker over in Arkansas. They kept killing it and taking the carcasses to places like the Smithsonian where, right now in a storage room, they have drawers full of Ivory Billed Woodpecker carcasses people killed and then sold to the museum. So far it's status is extinct but don't worry, there's plenty of dead ones in the Smithsonian.

Hunting should be restricted to species that are neither threatened or endangered. That's just common sense.

I'm pretty sure that's what regulation and hunting quotas are for, though.

If it's done properly, it can bring animals back from the brink.

There's other ways you can go about it too. Like say, a whole heap of people coming together and purchasing land for preservation. I'm sure if all the people that got upset with hunting came together and put a few thousand dollars for the cause each (better for the same amount as a hunt), then the situation wouldn't be as bad as it is.

Of course, you can say no hunting allowed, as you did; however, if it's shown that regulated hunting does help, then you can't neglect that, and you logically should do that if you care.

The reason the lion was hunted was due to wildlife guides being bribed in a park, letting this man have access to a place he shouldn't have been allowed to go. He killed a lion that had the reputation a beloved lion at a zoo has - with a name and regulars who go and visit it. It was a celebrity lion and it wasn't available to be hunted in the first place.

What you said applies to species that have adequate numbers but lions are currently threatened so it seems morally wrong to hunt a species until its numbers recover.

It all depends on numbers and where they are located, and how the population replenishes naturally.

If there's only two, then you aren't going to kill one to save the species.

If there's a thousand, then killing one to save the species is justifiable.

Anyway, the main thing in this case is that some are saying it was an illegal hunt. That's for the courts to decide.

My goodness, it's more than just one! What gives you the idea it's just one? They aren't going to stop with just one hunter. They have a certain number and since there's money involved...people are naturally greedy so they are more inclined to over hunt. Just because you are hearing about this one man, don't assume he is the only one hunting. You just happen to hear about him. In this case it was one famous lion that was killed. You need at least five years for all the lionesses to have enough baby lions to grow and produce more lions and then their babies produce babies and so on. It's not going to happen in a year or two because the little lions are barely grown. It takes three years for one lion cub to mature to adulthood. That's a long time for a baby animal.

According to the authorities, it was NOT done legally and it does not appear the money will go to conservation.

Which is the point of the thing. I wouldn't trust the authorities here more than the land owner, though. Zimbabwe has zero moral high ground.

What does ANY of this have to do with the subject?

1) Who said it was done "legally"?

2) Who said the money went to "conservation"?

3)Whats wrong with sentiment for a locally famous lion?

4) Bugs are more common than lions, and are not endangered, nor even endangered of becoming endangered. So of course killing a lion is a bigger deal.

More in response to people saying hunting a lion is "bad"; it can be "bad", but it can also be "good". More related to people outside of this thread.

1 and 2; I mentioned that; courts decide that, but I wouldn't say Zimbabwe will be all that impartial against a white person; if the land owner is white too, then they've lost all legitimacy here to me

3; who cares if people find it famous; famous or not is equal in the tier of life. The main point is if it was legal to hunt.

4; it's morally the same insofar as life goes. Yes, rarity does matter, but putting rarity itself on the tier of importance isn't a moral thing to do if you care about all life equally.

I think rarity does matter, but people that dislike killing one thing simply because of its appeal compared to others, isn't moral and just, and you'll find this is a common reason people will dislike hunting specific critters.

It doesn't sound like the money went to saving the species, nor that this lion was killed legally. Also I am sure there are better less damaging ways to make money to 'save the species'.

Already mentioned those things.

But anyway:

If the money went to the farmer's preserve, then yes, it did go to saving the species. Land isn't cheap to run, especially when it's kept natural. I have a koala preserve that makes zero money compared to if I knocked the trees down and farmed it.

Legality of the hunt is up to the courts; they have to prove they baited it across property lines and didn't have the required permits. A Zimbabwe official stating those facts doesn't make it so. Innocent till guilty and all that.

In an ideal world, yes, you can help species without hunting them.