world roar

This week I've been thinking of wildlife, ecology, Cecil the lion, and What Makes Sense in World.


If you read some National Geogrpahic and other articles about animals' life in the wild -- it's not exactly a spa vacation.  Lions fight over which male is going to be in this or that "pride" of lions -- sometimes they kill each other. 


Being shot by a hunter and dying quickly, or even within two days -- is that worse than being literally torn apart by another lion, or mortally wounded so you die out on the savannah from starvation because you're too weak to hunt for your food?


Then there's the whole hunting-for-food thing -- if Cecil attacked an elephant because he was hungry, whose "side" am I "on" -- Cecil's or the elephant's?


If lions are fighting which one do I want to survive, the one with a name?


What if they both have names?


(I want them to both survive and STOP FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)


In today's New York Times Review of Books, novelist Walter Mosley's essay included this:


"Almost everyone in Watts came from Louisiana or Texas.  They'd gather around kitchen tables, eating raw oysters swimming in Tabasco sauce, telling stories of the old days when death shadowed their every step." --


"When death shadowed their every step" would describe lions' life in the wild, I think.  And -- like for people -- it's nice to be alive, we make the most of it, and someday we will die.


____________________________


===  "Going to start dressing like a Lion -- That way cops know that if they kill me, white people will avenge me."  - Davon Magwood




===   "The biggest threat to African lions is not hunters but the loss of wild habitat through human overpopulation, development, and climate change."  - Don Thomas, Traditional Bowhunter Magazine




===  "It was said that the American had no idea it was an illegal hunt until he saw the tracking device at the end of the kill. 


Instead of going to the authorities, he took his trophy, they tried to break the tracker and then were going to have the head and fur of the lion sent to South Africa to then be sent on to the US where he could collect his prize. 


These are not the actions of an innocent man.


I believe he knew exactly what he was doing and did not care, just so he could kill a black mane lion.





I do not believe in the BIG Game hunts, but believe if it was monitored through the government regulations and government run vs private parties, that the money would be used for the good of the people vs feeding the egos of those that only want to kill. 


I believe he should be extradited to face charges with the rest and if not, then the collapse of his business here in the US is some justice. 


This man has done it before and will do it again.  He should have to pay for these illegal hunts. 


So for those of you that are ridiculing those that mourn for a lion they never knew.  Cecil, is yes the Lion King that brought nations together to try and save our wildlife from extinction.  Cecil's roar is heard around the world."  - Reader Comment to the New York Times, from Seattle.  8.7.15.




===  "It's not for food.  It's not the shooting, or tin cans would do.  It must just be the thrill of killing.  Mental."  - Ricky Gervais











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