Cecil the Lion

That to me just underlines how ludicrous the reaction to all this has been. The natural world is full of barbaric acts of unimaginable proportions. Lions not only kill each other on a regular basis, they slaughter their children too...yet somehow murdering this Cecil, this killing machine, is an unforgivable act of brutality.
...wut
 
Might arrest him if requested. But I doubt they would send him to Zimbabwe.

From reading the process of extradition I understand that an arrest can only be made if the extradition papers are in order. Then he would go in front of a judge and possibly a jury. Being Zimbabwe he would have had an easy ride to a blocked extradition but with the massive backlash the judge and jury will succumb to pressure I feel.
 
That to me just underlines how ludicrous the reaction to all this has been. The natural world is full of barbaric acts of unimaginable proportions. Lions not only kill each other on a regular basis, they slaughter their children too...yet somehow murdering this Cecil, this killing machine, is an unforgivable act of brutality.

I think it has something to do with anthropomorphism. The fact he's given a name and referred to in such a familiar tone was surely one of the hooks that drew people into the story and fuelled the outrage.

You honestly don't see the difference in a Lion carrying out its natural instincts in order to survive and take care of its young ,and a human paying big money to brutally kill an amimal for no reason other than bragging rights/possible sadistic reasons?
 
If Cecil was so great, how come he is dead? Answer that tough guy.
Because a human with a hunting rifle and a bow and arrow will always be top of the food chain.
And because of this even the strongest will become the weakest.
 
Your figures there are just wrong, for a start, the cartoon graphic is in tonnes and not numbers so your analogy to numbers killed is fundamentally flawed plus the fact you talk about all wild animals and then show a graphic of mammals only.

It's hard to estimate accurately but there's 7 billion humans and roughly 24 billion livestock animals on earth versus 60-400 billion birds, 100 billion - 1 trillion mammals and 2-20 trillion reptiles and amphibians combined plus another 10 trillion or more fish. If every single livestock animal on earth was killed it would amount to ~0.07% of the total vertebrates on the planet. Source: http://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/


I was asked the same questions about numbers by the same poster in the other thread so I explained my assumptions there, here I jsut copied my conclusions:

1. Birds:
As you said, my biomass graph doesn't consider birds, by a >9:1 ratio the most popular land meat.

2. Fish:
Again as you said, this was data for land mammals only. Bycatch ratios in seafood are sometimes as bad as 1:10. The weight consumption of seafood is known, and, using a gross overestimate average of 1.4 kg per marine animal caught (not eaten; think shrimp and mackarel), it works out to around double the number of chickens killed per year. These guys have ended up with a figure of 150 billion animals per year, and have cited their sources and explained their own underestimations. I'll list them here:
Data for the Kill Counter are based on worldwide animal slaughter statistics culled from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for the year 2003. (It should be noted that at the time the numbers were compiled, they were the minimum numbers of animals killed each year. The actual numbers may be significantly greater insofar as some countries or territories either did not report, or deliberately excluded, some statistics.)
It's important to note that, since most of the available data are now eight years old as of 2011, these estimates are extremely conservative. It is now quite likely that in many of the categories noted, the current kill rates are as much as 10 percent higher than what is indicated here.
...
Estimating Slaughter of Marine Animals
We believe that our estimate is conservative, and errs on the side of caution. Still, estimates such as this can be checked against another test according to which we work backwards from our estimate, by dividing gross annual production worldwide (measured in millions of metric tons) by our estimated number of individuals, to arrive at the supposed weight of an abstraction that we might call "the average marine animal." Total world fisheries captures and aquaculture, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and others for the period 1996 through 2002, have yielded results of 120.2, 122.5, 117.8, 126.6, 130.4, 128.8, and 133.0 millions of metric tons respectively.3 These figures in turn, along with our estimate, yield an "average marine animal's weight" of from 1.3 to 1.5 kilograms (2.9 to 3.3 pounds).

3. The reason I did a mass->number conversion:
Elephants: small numbers large weight cancel out mice, while cows cancel out goats . Having nothing better to go by, I decided 1:1. Again, this is excluding chicken and fish, which are predominant.

Now, with your data:

1. Issues with the total number:
24 billion livestock animals at one time may be true, but broilers (whose numbers will hugely skew the data) are slaughtered at 40 days, so per capita per annum kills (the pertinent number) will have to be adjusted accordingly. Pigs get a year while cows, the numerically least killed major food animals, get 2.

2. Fish:
Again, fish are slaughtered in the largest numbers but are not counted as livestock animals, even farmed fish aren't included in those calculations.

3. By consuming so much land and other resources, animal agriculture will be responsible for a disproportionate number of deaths of wild animals anyway.

4. Estimates of wild animals deep in tropical rainforests/savannah/tundra are useless for human impact calculations, since neither mine nor your actions would bother them other than long-term climate change effects well beyond my predictive powers. Together these numbers make up the bulk of your trillions estimate.


In that land mammals graph, for the sake of simplicity, and admittedly because it did not take away from my point, I said that human actions would kill every single wild mammal. Obviously that's the grossest overestimate I could possibly come up with. With these numbers that percentage can be reduced by an order or god-knows-how-many-orders of magnitude.

I've got nowt against vegetarians or vegans, my daughter went veggie on environmental grounds almost 10 years ago although I suspect she listened to the same sort of flawed heart string tugging propaganda you are repeating here. I'm of the school that believes if we weren't meant to eat animals, they wouldn't taste so damned nice,

I honestly can't find any heart-tugging propaganda I've written here, it's numbers FFS! I doubt anyone else is going to read a single word...

I never denied that we have been eating meat for aeons, that it probably tastes very good (I know I liked it years ago, no longer though). But then male humans have been raping women for aeons, and apparently baby humans taste like pork, but those aren't good justifications for raping women or eating babies, they are just statements. My case against meat-eating is not based on whether we can or whether we like to, it's whether we should.



so you'll have to excuse me if I think doing my bit in my own way and enjoying a nice steak is hypocrisy.

I've not addressed a single post in this thread to you, all hypocrisy comments was about those calling killing cecil murder while they eat meat everyday.
If there is anyone who I believe is hypocritical in the climate debate, it is the mainstream environment groups: Greenpeace, etc. and Al Gore, who never mention the single biggest cause of climate change.


Anyway, I'm sick of this thread, I swear this is my last post.
 
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It gets me angry just reading this. Some people are just stupid fecking cnuts. I'd actually be pleased to open a paper on day and see that they'd been ripped apart on a hunt.
Agree.
 
Your figures there are just wrong, for a start, the cartoon graphic is in tonnes and not numbers so your analogy to numbers killed is fundamentally flawed plus the fact you talk about all wild animals and then show a graphic of mammals only.

It's hard to estimate accurately but there's 7 billion humans and roughly 24 billion livestock animals on earth versus 60-400 billion birds, 100 billion - 1 trillion mammals and 2-20 trillion reptiles and amphibians combined plus another 10 trillion or more fish. If every single livestock animal on earth was killed it would amount to ~0.07% of the total vertebrates on the planet. Source: http://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/

I've got nowt against vegetarians or vegans, my daughter went veggie on environmental grounds almost 10 years ago although I suspect she listened to the same sort of flawed heart string tugging propaganda you are repeating here. I'm of the school that believes if we weren't meant to eat animals, they wouldn't taste so damned nice, I should eat less on health and environmental grounds but then I should also drink a lot less, knock the cigars on the head and get more exercise. I didn't drive for many years because public transport was a viable alternative in Asia but have had to revert to driving a gas guzzler now I'm back in the UK and have clocked up more air miles than many in the royal family. I recognise that I'm potentially a drain on the planets finite resources but what would you have me do, top myself or give up work and grow my own mung beans and lentils? Hell, I even know that my Carbon footprint of around 15MT CO2 PA is way above the average, but I do also work in a field of Engineering where my specialism is in the reduction of embedded CO2 in finished Engineering projects to the tune of 85-90% savings over conventional techniques and know my direct design work that has been built over the last 20 years has saved over 100,000MT of CO2 so you'll have to excuse me if I think doing my bit in my own way and enjoying a nice steak is hypocrisy.

Its a long winded way of saying 'I don't give two fecks'. Which is fair enough, but just say it. Its almost as if you are having a debate with your consciousness, and have decided that there is some justification in your enjoyment of meat, knowing that the industry that provided that meat is cruel and barbaric, simply because of your line of work.
 
Wait was this hunt illegal? I thought he paid all that money for permits etc. Surely you can't be arrested for participating in a legal activity just because others disagree with it?
 
Its a long winded way of saying 'I don't give two fecks'. Which is fair enough, but just say it. Its almost as if you are having a debate with your consciousness, and have decided that there is some justification in your enjoyment of meat, knowing that the industry that provided that meat is cruel and barbaric, simply because of your line of work.
Nah, it's my way of saying I couldn't give two fecks for the whole "Meat is Murder" debate but refusing to stand by whilst someone quotes statistics as fact when they are so far out of whack with reality.
 
Wait was this hunt illegal? I thought he paid all that money for permits etc. Surely you can't be arrested for participating in a legal activity just because others disagree with it?

Cecil was a protected animal inside a sanctuary. They lured him out and killed him. He had a tracker etc so "sorry guv I didn't know is no excuse".
 
Feck Pandas.
Yes, I'm kind of with you there. What daft things they are. Can't breed properly, have to eat bamboo instead of easy-to-get stuff, everyone's desperate to save them even though they obviously want to become extinct.

I am serious here, not being sarcastic. Wouldn't want to see them hunted, though.
 
I've pretty much tried to avoid this story as much as possible.

I just can't deal with animal cruelty or abuse. It makes me sad beyond belief.

I honestly wouldn't feel the slightest bit of sympathy if this cnut got tracked down and killed. In fact, I'd applaud the killer.
 
I don't know why people feel the burning need to say shit like that. It's patently daft.

It's like a Daily Mail comments section competition to see who can be the most OTT. Or out-cnut the cnuty protagonist in outrage.
 
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I don't know why people feel the burning need to say shit like that. It's patently daft.

It's like a Daily Mail comments section competition to see who can be the most OTT. Or out-cnut the cnuty protagonist in outrage.

Presume thats aimed at me?

I just can't deal with animal cruelty on any level. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who deliberately sets out to harm animals is an utter cnut in my book. Let alone someone who goes around killing wild animals for 'trophies'. Same goes for people that hunt foxes, and justify it as being a 'sport'. Its vile, and I have zero sympathy for any harm that comes the way of those people.
 
Presume thats aimed at me?

I just can't deal with animal cruelty on any level. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who deliberately sets out to harm animals is an utter cnut in my book. Let alone someone who goes around killing wild animals for 'trophies'. Same goes for people that hunt foxes, and justify it as being a 'sport'. Its vile, and I have zero sympathy for any harm that comes the way of those people.

Very strange moral compass to not be able to deal with animal cruelty at any level but not care about human cruelty at some levels.
 
Very strange moral compass to not be able to deal with animal cruelty at any level but not care about human cruelty at some levels.

I never mentioned human cruelty. I find it equally as hard to deal with things like cruelty to vulnerable and young people especially. My girlfriend works with vulnerable adults, and some of the stories she's told me make my blood run cold.
 
I never mentioned human cruelty. I find it equally as hard to deal with things like cruelty to vulnerable and young people especially. My girlfriend works with vulnerable adults, and some of the stories she's told me make my blood run cold.

You mentioned not feeling anything if he got hunted down and killed, which would be human cruelty. It's an equally abhorrent act that's independent of what he did and not diminished by it.
 
You mentioned not feeling anything if he got hunted down and killed, which would be human cruelty. It's an equally abhorrent act that's independent of what he did and not diminished by it.

I have no sympathy for some who's already committed countless act of cruelty on animals, no. Just like I have no sympathy with murderers, rapists etc etc

Obviously if we were talking about some innocent person who got hunted down and killed, I'd be disgusted. But he's not an innocent person, he's quite frankly a vile scumbag who takes pleasure in the murder of defenseless animals just for shits and giggles.
 
I have no sympathy for some who's already committed countless act of cruelty on animals, no. Just like I have no sympathy with murderers, rapists etc etc

Obviously if we were talking about some innocent person who got hunted down and killed, I'd be disgusted. But he's not an innocent person, he's quite frankly a vile scumbag who takes pleasure in the murder of defenseless animals just for shits and giggles.

Whether he's innocent or not doesn't detract away from the act of human cruelty, so like I said strange moral compass. If you're okay with that being the case then fair enough but it is what it is.
 
Whether he's innocent or not doesn't detract away from the act of human cruelty, so like I said strange moral compass. If you're okay with that being the case then fair enough but it is what it is.

Is locking him up cruel? Hopefully that is logically consistent from your viewpoint.
 
There are what, 7 billion people? There are less than 20 thousand lions.

Most people are cnuts anyways. Most lions are rare. Rare things have more value in our society. Cnuty things have less value in our society. Basically Cecil the Lion has more intrinsic value than many people and definitely more value than the dude who shot him.

I hope he gets extradited.
 
Very strange moral compass to not be able to deal with animal cruelty at any level but not care about human cruelty at some levels.

I don't actually see the disconnect at all. People are shitty. When a person decides to do something awful, they have no excuse (or a much better chance to deny their base impulse to do something shitty). When a guy goes out and shoots an animal (with a bow no less...) I can say "what the feck is your excuse?" If that guy gets killed, I'd feel absolutely no remorse for him. I don't know him. I have no emotional connection to him. All I know is that he has a track record for shitty behavior, abusing animals and being an asshole. If he dies? Good, feck him.

That might seem like an awful thing, but I'm not saying I'd do it. I'm not saying I'd wish him dead. I'm saying if someone shot him with an arrow, chased him for 40 hours, finally ending his suffering, posed for pictures with his corpse, cut off his head and then skinned him, I'd say "That guys a psychopath, and if someone killed him too, I'd totally not care", "Oh and, I totally don't care that this psychopath murdered this other psychopath".