Lion’s death brings out the worst in everyone

I don’t know enough about Zimbabwe game law to comment on the legality of the hunt that resulted in the death of Cecil the lion, but the ethics of that hunt demand examination.

The facts in this case are pretty straightforward.

Dennis Palmer of Eden Prairie, Minn., killed an adult male lion as a client of a licensed professional hunter, Theo Bronkhorst. The hunt, according to all involved, occurred on property leased by an outfitter named Headman Sibanda. Bronkhorst and Sibanda claim to have had all the proper permits, and that Bronkhorst and Palmer killed the lion legally. They say they did not know that the lion was famous.

Apparently neither did most people in Zimbabwe, and they don’t seem to care even now. I also suspect that 98 percent of the Americans and Europeans who went psychotic on social media had ever heard of Cecil the lion before the incident.

A posse of Internet vigilantes who have hounded Palmer into hiding and caused him to at least temporarily shutter his dentistry practice contend Cecil was “beloved,” which is a specious and subjective claim. The preponderance of comments on social media demonstrate no sincere love for or actual familiarity with Cecil, but they drip with raw hatred for hunting and for hunters.

Exhibit A is a cartoon that originally appeared in the Tulsa World that paired a terrified Palmer afield with a leering Dick Cheney. The suggestion being, of course, that Palmer will get a dose of Wild West justice from a man who once shot a hunting partner.

Furthermore, a distinctive class warfare component is ubiquitous in the online inquisition against Palmer and cannot be discounted as a driving motivator.

For all the apparent misdeeds in this incident, the international hunting community has shunned Palmer. Safari Club International suspended his membership. Zimbabwe has revoked Bronkhorst’s professional hunter license. He could face criminal charges, as well as the landowner.

As for the actual ethics of the hunt, Internet vigilantes fixate on two elements. One is that Bronkhorst lured the lion off a refuge to a place where it could be killed.

The other is that Palmer wounded the lion with an arrow, and that the cat suffered for two days before Bronkhorst and Palmer tracked it down and killed it.

That Palmer arrowed the lion on private ground is undisputed. The hunting party is believed to have taken an animal carcass into the park to lead the lion to private ground. I don’t know how most hunters feel about that, but it bothers me.

That’s a situational ethic. The general ethics of luring game from protected places to killing zones are more nebulous. It is actually common practice in Arkansas.

For example, hunters on private land in the Ozarks and Ouachitas use bait to lure black bears out of our national forests or wildlife management areas onto private land where they can be killed. Baiting for bears is illegal on public land in Arkansas but is legal on private ground.

Thousands of people travel to the Buffalo National River every year to watch elk in Boxley Valley. The Buffalo National River is a national park, but hunting is allowed there. Elk hunting is tightly regulated in the Buffalo National River area, but regulations favor private landowners in the elk management zones.

Some landowners invest considerable resources building food plots and mineral stations to lure elk off national park property so a landowner or his agent can kill them with properly issued permits.

The difference is that urbanites have not anthropomorphized bears or elk. Karen Anderson, a self-ascribed animal “psychic,” claims to have channeled Cecil’s “spirit” to impart Cecil’s words of wisdom and reconciliation to his mourners. If you want to talk about a war on science, Anderson is the brigade’s PR flack.

Is it ethical to persuade an animal to leave a safe haven and travel to a place where it can be killed?

Some hunters don’t think so. A consensus of hunters say yes.

After all, that is the purpose of duck calls, goose calls, turkey calls, grunt calls, scents, decoys, corn feeders, mineral blocks, thrown feed and sown feed.

On the other hand, isn’t it also unethical to harass, defame, slander, intimidate, threaten, menace and violate the privacy of people you don’t know over an incident that has no direct bearing on your life and in which you have no personal stake or interest?

It is.