cecil the lion was a bad boy , deserved to die

[mayhem]

This word from a true conservative regarding the meaning of the Cecil killing.

Trophy hunters like Palmer have a passion for killing polar bears and the like. There is no accounting for taste, but surely there are other engrossing hobbies that don’t involve shooting the planet’s most stunning creatures. How about stamp collecting? If that’s not thrilling enough, there’s always mountain climbing, BASE jumping, or tightrope walking.

Anti-poaching laws, which might have been broken in this case, should be as tightly enforced as possible, and the act of killing a glorious beast for a photo with his carcass and a stuffed head on the wall as a conversation piece back home should be considered the shameful waste that it is.

None of this is to say that lions in particular should be sentimentalized. They are man-eaters whose social life is Hobbesian in the extreme. They also are a wonder of nature whose numbers are dwindling. We can disagree about the exact parameters of our obligations to the animal kingdom, but surely going out of our way to slay a creature like Cecil the lion should be out of bounds.

— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. © 2015 King Features Syndicate

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/killing-c ... tid=900170