So, a few days ago news broke that a famous, and beloved, male lion in Zimbabwe had been killed by a trophy hunter. At first the hunter was reported to be a mysterious Spanish hunter, but now it has been claimed to be a rich dentist from Minnesota. A guy who plunked down $55 large for the utter joy of hunting a lion that, reportedly, was reasonably friendly with people.
Full disclosure: in general I’m fine with hunting and fishing and such. I eat as much meat as I can. But trophy hunting fills me with a distinct uncomfortableness. You want to hang a deer head on your wall? Well, OK, we’ve got lots of deer. But a *lion?* The world isn’t exactly overloaded with those. Plus… lions are a lot higher up the ladder than deer and gazelle and the like.
Well, beyond the “dude, why?” aspect of hunting a lion, it turns out that the hunt itself was apparently carried out illegally in several ways:
1) It was done at night, which was illegal
2) It was illegal to hunt the lion on the park the lion was in… so they tied a dead animal to a car and lured it out of the park, then shot it with a bow and arrow (or crossbow).
3) The lion had a GPS collar, which they removed and attempted to destroy
Well, the internet has discovered the guy and has begun the inevitable.
Here’s the Yelp review page for his dental practice ( currently… 60 5-star ratings, 7 4-stars, 14 3 stars, 17 2-stars and 1,664 1-star ratings). Their Facebook page has vanished. The practice’s webpage seems to be *sorta* functional, though it’s even lamer than mine and much of it seems to be broken. The dental practice was closed rather abruptly, and inquiries are being directed to a PR firm.
Its unclear that this guy broke any US laws. But it’s also clear that he’ll be taking a little break from making money as a dentist.