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American accused of killing Zimbabwe's popular Cecil the lion
more here

Quote:
Wildlife officials on Tuesday accused an American tourist of killing Cecil, one of the oldest and most famous lions in Zimbabwe, without a permit after paying $50,000 to two people who lured the beast to its death.

The lion was lured out of Hwange National Park using a bait and was shot by the Walter James Palmer with a crossbow, Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF), told reporters.

Rodrigues said Palmer paid Zimbabwean hunter Theo Bronkhorst and Honest Ndlovu, a private game park owner, to lure the 13-year-old Cecil. Bronkhorst and Ndlovu will face poaching charges on Wednesday in Hwange for the killing of the lion on July 1, Rodriguez said.

Palmer -- who U.S. media reports said was a dentist from Minnesota -- was not immediately available for comment.

A spokesman for Palmer told the Guardian that the hunter believed he may have shot the lion.

"As far as I understand, Walter believes that he might have shot that lion that has been referred to as Cecil," a spokesman for Palmer said.

"What he'll tell you is that he had the proper legal permits and he had hired several professional guides, so he's not denying that he may be the person who shot this lion. He is a big-game hunter; he hunts the world over."

Palmer's whereabouts were not immediately known but Cecil's head and skin were recovered and would be used as evidence in court, Rodrigues said.

Cecil was a popular attraction at the Hwange National Park and had featured in many photographic shoots.

Lions are not protected species in Zimbabwe. If convicted, the two men would be required to pay $20,000 in compensation but the court may impose an additional jail term.

Investigations show the killing of Cecil was illegal because the land owner was not allocated a lion on his hunting quota for 2015, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA) and ZCTF said in a statement.

"Therefore, all persons implicated in this case are due to appear in court facing poaching charges," the conservationists said.

Zimbabwe issues annual permits allowing foreign hunters to kill wildlife like the elephant, buffalo and lion, saying this allows it to raise money for conservation. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by James Macharia and Angus MacSwan)

Oh, look! More proof Big Game Hunters are lazy pieces of s**t. YOU LURED HIM OUT OF A PROTECTED ZONE, YOU c**t.

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Wow. People amaze me.

Tipsy Dog

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Updated article it seems

Imo the guys a butthole and deserve the hate he's going to get from animal activists.

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Looks like he got scammed (in manner of speaking)

But then surely if he was "a big-game hunter; who hunts the world over. " He would sort of be savvy about this thing. and not trust someone called Honest

Barton Paladin

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It amazes me how you can have all this material circulating about endangered species and then still have some butthole go and kill one for fun.

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Not only he kills a pretty famous lion, this lion was part of a research done by Oxford university and had a collar with a tracking GPS on. emotion_facepalm
This guy is an idiot

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He didn't even hunt this animal. They lured it with meat in the middle of the night and shot it. He's not a hunter just a butcher.

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The lion's corpse was found skinned and beheaded...... You know, I hope Zimbabwe learns a lesson here. Getting big game hunters to kill your precious wild life is no way to raise money for conservation. And with all the poor locals near there, it's not like they gave them to rest of the body to feed on. stressed

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But now who will lead the Red Wings of Baron? crying

I'm sorry. Too soon, right?

RIP. I hope they throw the book at that poacher.

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This guy is an idiot. U can't fix stupid. emotion_facepalm emotion_facepalm emotion_facepalm

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If you wanna hunt big game, do it LEGALLY. I'm fine with you killing a lion, elephant, giraffe, whatevs, just actually HUNT it. Reminds me of an episode of King of the Hill where Hank takes Bobby to this hunting resort and the deer LITERALLY walk up to the deer stand because there's a corn distributor underneath it. Bobby takes aim at a deer that's 10ft away and says "this is wrong..."

See, luring an animal out from a protected zone and killing, helluva bad thing to do and WAAAAY illegal. Now, had he gone somewhere else, say, the Savannah or some other place lions are wont to roam, tracked one, and killed it, all within the legalities of whatever country he did it in, I'm perfectly fine, but what he did was tantamount to going to the Central Park Zoo, opening a cage, and shooting an animal. IT HAD A NAME FOR ******** SAKE!!!

I'm sure he'll be able to get off with a slap on the wrist because he "didn't know it was THAT famous lion..."

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Kaiser Khorosho
If you wanna hunt big game, do it LEGALLY. I'm fine with you killing a lion, elephant, giraffe, whatevs, just actually HUNT it. Reminds me of an episode of King of the Hill where Hank takes Bobby to this hunting resort and the deer LITERALLY walk up to the deer stand because there's a corn distributor underneath it. Bobby takes aim at a deer that's 10ft away and says "this is wrong..."

/quote]then there is also that Simpson's episode where Homer thinks Bart is turning out gay and decides to take him hunting to straighten him out. Only for some reason he cannot do real hunting so they break into Santa's Village and Homer asks him to shoot a reindeer that cannot get away. Bart refuses.

Then again did he really not know it was a famous lion, or did he do it on purpose so he can brag about killing the famous lion.

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I don't understand why luring an animal with bait and killing it is any worse than stalking an animal and killing it.

The animal isn't playing a sport. It has no idea that it's game. It doesn't know that it's in a battle of wits against a naked ape with a gun, and that that ape has devised a complex set of rules and "ethics" for this battle.

It dies the same way, whether it was lured or stalked. And once it's dead, it has no idea of anything, presumably at least.

The whole "fair chase" thing seems like a convention, and not a real moral principle with grounding in logic.

Heck, people lure fish with bait.

I just feel sad for the dead lions.

Do people even eat lion meat?

Not that it seems that the lion would care either way.

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What an a*****e

LadyShi's Husband

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The feels wagon and witch-hunt just started

Fact

> hunting does more for conservation programs than all you brave keyboard warriors
> money acquired from hunting license is used to fund fences, park rangers, vets, food/medicine for animals, overall maintenance and operations of said conservation programs and national parks
> license are issued for specific animal that threatens the herd (i.e. patriarch is too old to breed efficiently, eliminating this would give way to younger males to take over the pride)
> Average wild lion life span is 15 years, Cecil is 13 years old - so yeah he is grandpa in lion years


Facts about this specific case

> hunter is a professional, this isn't the first time he did this wild African Safari hunt
> being pro-hunter, he knows the importance of doing s**t legally considering his past experience with US hunting law 7 yrs ago
> he paid $55,000 for permit to kill lion in this region
> no idiot would pay $55,000 for something illegal, since you risk going to jail and not having to take home your trophy


Related facts for Science

> This is Zimbabwe we talking are about, you know that place 15 years ago that allowed the land grab from farmers (who managed farm lands for over a century) .. this lands were grabbed because they were simply white - and you can definitely say it was open season to murder and rape those who refuse to giveaway their lands

> yearly 100M USD farm industry being forcefully taken obviously seized operating

> farm laborers lost job, food production decreased, country's GDP is in decline, giving way to crazy levels of inflation... Government's solution was to print more money... the cycle of hyperinflation was never ending, literally making Zimbabwen dollars worth s**t at present day (it was reported that inflation in that country skyrocketed to 231 million percent a year) - no joke (pics for it did happen)



With economy being s**t... and Zimbabwe overall being s**t.. common sense tells me:

> Guides can't resist selling a hunting license for a male lion for lots of money.. and $55,000 USD is a lot
> With shitty government, shitty laws - you pretty much expect shitty staff managing their conservation parks
> Guides gave hunter the ok, hunt was done .. achievement unlocked for dentist as superior alpha male for killing majestic creature (testosterone levels maxed)
> Locals looking for famous lion realized he got killed ... public outrage intensifies
> Staff/guides are like --- s**t WE SCREW UP..
> Media attention and news got viral, FEELS were triggered over 9000
> Let's blame american dentist for killing lion (that his corrupt guides and hunting officials gave him the OK to do so), because you know his fault for having a hobby that goes against my principles/beliefs ..because god knows how many were and still being killed by poachers to sell to Asian black market... this one lion killed by hunter is worst because Cecil is famous according to this article I read in the past 24 hrs
> feels good to be righteous and preaching his death, because I am a warrior for social injustices, CECIL I promise your memory will live on in the hearts of many (or until the next viral social injustice news comes along)


tl;dr - hunter got duped paying $55,000 for a license... people/guides who gave him the permit certainly at fault, but we should destroy that hunter for killing majestic creature because muh feels
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