The Secretive Hunt that Ended In Universal Reproach

It occurred during one of the first nights of July. The American hunter and dentist Walter J. Palmer, with the help of two local guides, killed a beautiful 13-year-old lion, Cecil, outside the national park of Hwange (Zimbabwe) in an act that was both premeditated and under the cover of darkness. According to the authorities of the African nation, Palmer lured the animal outside the park, hunted it with an arrow, and shot and killed it after pursuing it for 40 hours.

Walter later said in a statement that he wasn’t aware he was doing something illegal. Such ignorance is doubtful for a man of his experience in big game hunting: a man whose Internet footprint is basically a gallery of photos posing with dead buffalo, leopards and rhinos killed by gunshot or arrow; a man who was already condemned in 2008 for taking down a black bear outside of an authorized zone in the state of Wisconsin. More than likely, Palmer knew that he was facing a new punishment, possibly an arrest, but what he couldn’t foresee was that by the speed of social media, his action would transform him into a global villain and his hunting into a cause for universal indignation.

The news went viral because it had all of the components to make it so: an emblematic and innocent victim and an evil without remission, images of a very beautiful animal and a hunter celebrating his egotistical victory over the corpses of many animals. Palmer’s professional Yelp and Facebook pages were very quickly flooded with messages that fluctuated between blunt criticism, insults and threats. The dental clinic closed, and given the volume and tone of the backlash, it is not likely that it will re-open its doors in the short term. It may close forever.

It was only 100 years ago when man equated lions to danger. He probably had never seen one except for in the circus. Maybe he had read about them in the Bible or in Kipling or Salgari novels, where hunting was portrayed as a risky sport where the wild beast had means of coming out victorious. In contrast, today, people in many parts of the world have grown up with images of the beautiful animals in the savanna on their TVs, cartoons showing lions with huge eyes that portray nobility or valor, and stuffed animals that soften the image of the king of the jungle. For the civilized world of the 21st century, the danger is that the lion is disappearing.

Respect for animals, empathy toward these close and suffering relatives in a world where up to now we haven’t met any new neighbors, is a sign of superior intelligence. But there should also be disgust when the most resolute condemnations turn into a lynch mob, even in the face of the most miserable actions, now that Twitter or Facebook allows each one of us to participate in collective stoning with our own small stone.