Friends, Roanokers, Countrymen lend me your ears. I’ve come to bury Cecil, not to praise him. The evil that lions do lives after them…
I’m hoping now that the blood has dried; ere since the brute Walter slew Cecil that dark night, drilling him with a bolt from his crossbow while Cecil was dumpster diving on the wrong side of town. Perhaps now, with another hunting season upon us, we can now have a civilized conversation about hunting, killing, and life.
If you’ll remember, within hours of Cecil’s death, Ingrid Newkirk called for someone to kill Walter. She said “he needs to be extradited, charged, and, preferably, hanged.” Ingrid is the president of PETA, so I suppose it’s her job to put out an assassination fatwa on dentists who knock off lions.
A few days later Zimbabwe asked for the extradition of Walter. Maybe to be flogged or maybe to be hanged. Robert Mugabe’s conscienceless fiefdom suddenly discovered that taking a stand on animal rights seems to be the best way to camouflage the absence of human rights in his totalitarian nation.
The plot in this bloody drama got even thicker.
Sir Rodger Moore wrote that “Cecil’s death is particularly poignant, as he leaves behind two prides containing some 24 young or female members, whom wildlife experts believe may soon come to harm without his protection. So Palmer can add these innocents to his death count, too, even if he won’t have their heads to grace his wall.”
Moore, who made his fortune playing the 007 agent with a license to kill, should have told the gruesome way Cecil’s offspring will die, seeing as how selling gratuitous violence and sex paid his bills. Another male will move in on his now unattached mates and crush their skulls with his teeth. Male lions won’t raise another males babies and their mama’s won’t come into heat while she is raising children. So he kills and eats the babies. Just like Cecil did.
But what has me most perplexed about all this vitriolic preaching, is why haven’t Rodger and Ingrid and their followers thanked Walter for killing Cecil?
Make no mistake about it, Cecil was not a vegan saint, he was eating innocent zebra and gazelle and leaving their babies orphaned before he had a mane. Cecil was a carnivore serial killer.
I don’t understand all the fuss? If dentists evolved from primeval slime then there’s nothing wrong, or right about life, or for that matter, death. One killer, killed another, so what? It’s the circle of life, we’re all animals and when we die we all return to the periodic table. End of story.
So why are so many experiencing moral outrage over one predator killing another? Are we going to start incarcerating orcas for murdering seals, or snakes for killing rats?
Unless perhaps those calling for the punishment or death of Walter are suggesting that humans are unique in the animal kingdom? That humans have special rights and responsibilities bequeathed upon them by their Creator which make them unique?
No, forget that I said that.
Even the suggestion of intelligent design, a Creator, or any suggestion of divinely endued uniqueness in Homo sapiens would be summarily dismissed by Ingrid and Rodger and all the disciples of Darwin.
Their egalitarian construct gives all animals equal rights. Man was not created in the image of God, and therefore all must be subject to the same laws. So killers like Walter and Cecil must be punished.
I’m all for the ethical treatment of animals. But ethics and morality didn’t crawl out of the amino acid soup bowl. Humans are the only animal that can actually be humane. The fact that we were created after the image and likeness of the creator does in fact endow us with certain unalienable rights. And with rights come responsibilities.
So should we let Walter off the hook? As a hunter I say absolutely not.
I’ve got near zero respect for someone who sits over a trash pile to hunt for a trophy. I’d tell Walter, or anyone else who wants a lion head for their parlor wall, that I’d respect them if they would kill it like a Maasai man.
Gird your loins, look the king of the jungle in the eyes, and stab him with your spear. Then if you still want to put his head on the wall you’d actually have something to be proud of.
Jeff Ell is pretty good at catching, killing, picking, and growing things to eat. He regularly finds bemusement in the outdoors and enjoys telling his stories to anyone who will listen. Jeff’s the author of Ruth Uncensored, blogs at pastorjeffell.com. and can be contacted via Facebook or smoke signal.
