Cecil the lion dead, lead story on Drudge

[TCinVA]

Hunting pays for the vast majority of conservation work that goes on in the world, folks.

Bows, believe it or not, are extremely efficient at what they do. I haven't shot any 500 pound cats with one, but I have shot plenty of critters with one and I've shot plenty of critters with various firearms.

A good bow shot drops game faster than any rifle shot I've seen short of a CNS hit. I've seen double-lunged deer take a hit, take a few steps, wobble and then fall over with a massive blood stream pouring out of both sides of the animal. Meanwhile I've seen deer shot through the heart with a .300 Win Mag run 100 yards up the side of a mountain and collapse in a heap.

The idea that you can't make a clean kill on a big animal with a bow is silly. Modern bows with carbon arrows and good broadheads penetrate deep (complete pass-throughs on medium sized game are normal now) and cut vitals efficiently instead of crushing them like bullets do. The broadheads are as sharp as scalpels. I actually cut myself with a broadhead some years ago out in the woods. I didn't realize I had been cut until I noticed my glove was awful sticky, removed it, and found I had sliced myself quite nicely. I was able to wring blood out of my glove and I never felt a thing.

There's nothing inhumane about using a bow as a hunting weapon.

Killing an animal with a bow requires being close to that animal...generally 30 yards an in. Getting that close usually means getting the wind just right in your favor, using the features of the land to your advantage, etc. Anyone who thinks its easy should go try it against white tail sometime. I've been skunked far more often than I've been successful.

Hunting is not an equal initiative endeavor. The critter you are hunting is going to be busy looking for food or looking for a mate when you interrupt its day with death. If it knows you are there, you don't bag the animal. So you intend to ambush it. Same thing that the lion does to the gazelle. Same thing that the meat processor does to the cow that was on your grill on July 4th. You know, the holiday where it's tradition to gather together with friends and family and share meat from a critter that frankly didn't really need to die to keep anyone from starving? Everybody enjoyed the dead critter and I dare say nobody felt bad about it.

Unfortunately the cow people ate a couple of weeks ago didn't have a PR campaign.

If the animal was taken legally, there's no foul. If it was taken illegally, there are resources to prosecute the person who did it made possible in large part by the fees paid by people who DO sport hunt legally.

This whole thing is absurd.

[GJM]

Of course, most rural Africans think highly of sport hunting. The land has to pay, and that means sport hunting, photo safaris, bulldozing it for farming, or poaching the animals for meat. Sport hunting is the highest value use of the land, compared to alternative uses, and leaves the land and animals most in its "natural" state.

As to the meat, nobody is flying half way around the world to hunt to be able harvest the meat for their own use. The villages get the meat. Not so much from a lion, but an elephant feeds many Africans for a number of days.

As to conserving the animals, many rural Africans would kill all the animals in their area, either to eat them or keep them from being a nuisance. Using an elephant as an example, the elephant destroys their crops. However, hunting an elephant brings them more money, offsetting the hassle of elephants destroying their crops. Therefore, the elephant lives, and the locals get money for schools and healthcare.

Google Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE program for more information on the role of hunting in preserving the animals and land.

[Slavex]

I'm not into hunting at all, don't really like the taste of game meat, and have zero interest in spending my days off out in the rain and cold waiting on, or tracking an animal. I grew up on a mink farm and have personally killed and skinned more animals than any hunter ever will, 15-20,000 animals every year since I was 12 until I left the farm in my late 20's. I'm done with dealing with dead animals. All that said, I full support trophy hunting. The people I know who do it either use the meat or donate it, so they can get their mount. I have zero issue with canned hunts or tree stands. In some places those are the only legal way to hunt certain animals. Here in BC we can't bait deer but back east they have to. Different laws, different methods of hunting.
Hunting is one of the most important aspects of human society, it's one of the things that got us to where we are now. The bravery, the thrill, the stalking, the planning, all of that is what helped shape humanity. To stop people hunting, which this unfortunate event is going to help people argue for, will remove an important aspect from humanity

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There is a recent Scientific American article that theorizes how the use of projectile weapons moved us on the road to civilization. There is also a theory that developing tools and thrown weapons developed motor skills used in language.

However, the issue seems to be that proclaiming you are a mighty manly hunter for trophies using baited ambushes as compared to one putting meat on the table. There is no stalking or significant planning in shooting deer at a feeder - and then chortling about your abilities. If you do it to eat - that's different. If you waste the meat and just go for the antlers - nope, that's not ethical in my eyes.

[TGS]

To stop people hunting, which this unfortunate event is going to help people argue for, will remove an important aspect from humanity

I honestly don't see that happening. With the lack of accountability involved in commercial meat packing these days, the "local-vore" movement has given hunting a new bredth of endorsement it didn't have before.

I think the amount of Starbucks sipping iPhone slacktivists who are either supportive, sympathetic, or don't really care about game harvesting is greater than those who want to see it done away with.

We've come full circle where hunting is actually the liberal - minded socially responsible thing to do. My sister teaches at a high school servicing the children of big - pharma and wall street powerhouses....and they bring her venison.

[GJM]

However, the issue seems to be that proclaiming you are a mighty manly hunter for trophies using baited ambushes as compared to one putting meat on the table. There is no stalking or significant planning in shooting deer at a feeder - and then chortling about your abilities. If you do it to eat - that's different. If you waste the meat and just go for the antlers - nope, that's not ethical in my eyes.

While there are variations on this, and the particulars of each hunt vary, be clear, that when on a guided hunt, the PH or guide is the hunter, and you are the sport. That said, not many folks are going to be able to hunt without a guide in Africa or Alaska -- the logistics are near insurmountable.

Having hunted Africa and Alaska with guides throughout the 90's, and on our own in Alaska since 2003, we really cherish the experiences on our own, even if the outcome is less successful.

A big problem is social media. It used to be that you showed like minded friends hunt pictures, but now you show the world. Most people feel the same about photos of animal conquests, as they would about seeing photos of dating conquests.

[Sensei]

Hunting pays for the vast majority of conservation work that goes on in the world, folks.

Bows, believe it or not, are extremely efficient at what they do. I haven't shot any 500 pound cats with one, but I have shot plenty of critters with one and I've shot plenty of critters with various firearms.

A good bow shot drops game faster than any rifle shot I've seen short of a CNS hit. I've seen double-lunged deer take a hit, take a few steps, wobble and then fall over with a massive blood stream pouring out of both sides of the animal. Meanwhile I've seen deer shot through the heart with a .300 Win Mag run 100 yards up the side of a mountain and collapse in a heap.

The idea that you can't make a clean kill on a big animal with a bow is silly. Modern bows with carbon arrows and good broadheads penetrate deep (complete pass-throughs on medium sized game are normal now) and cut vitals efficiently instead of crushing them like bullets do. The broadheads are as sharp as scalpels. I actually cut myself with a broadhead some years ago out in the woods. I didn't realize I had been cut until I noticed my glove was awful sticky, removed it, and found I had sliced myself quite nicely. I was able to wring blood out of my glove and I never felt a thing.

There's nothing inhumane about using a bow as a hunting weapon.

Killing an animal with a bow requires being close to that animal...generally 30 yards an in. Getting that close usually means getting the wind just right in your favor, using the features of the land to your advantage, etc. Anyone who thinks its easy should go try it against white tail sometime. I've been skunked far more often than I've been successful.

Hunting is not an equal initiative endeavor. The critter you are hunting is going to be busy looking for food or looking for a mate when you interrupt its day with death. If it knows you are there, you don't bag the animal. So you intend to ambush it. Same thing that the lion does to the gazelle. Same thing that the meat processor does to the cow that was on your grill on July 4th. You know, the holiday where it's tradition to gather together with friends and family and share meat from a critter that frankly didn't really need to die to keep anyone from starving? Everybody enjoyed the dead critter and I dare say nobody felt bad about it.

Unfortunately the cow people ate a couple of weeks ago didn't have a PR campaign.

If the animal was taken legally, there's no foul. If it was taken illegally, there are resources to prosecute the person who did it made possible in large part by the fees paid by people who DO sport hunt legally.

This whole thing is absurd.

Sorry if I was talking out of my ass about the bow not being a humane means to dispatch a lion. I truly have no experience with such matters aside from some reports that the lion in question may have survived some hours or even days after being shot. It seems that I may have spoke out of turn.

Here is a website with information on draw weights, arrow design, and vital zone for a lion:
http://huntinginafricasafaris.com/af...-south-africa/

Having said that, if faced with a lion within 50 meters and given a choice of my old Bear Whitetail II or my DTA in 338LM, well.... I suppose that is why all of these companies advertising dangerous game hunting in Africa do so with the caveat that trackers with rifles stand prepared to shoot the animal if the guy with the bow cannot make a safe kill.

[Sensei]

Double tap

[Joe in PNG]

Sadly, I can see this ending the tradition of the African Big game safari. The image these days of the Great White Hunter is less Teddy Roosevelt/Earnest Hemingway and more... wealthy dentist.
Hopefully the eco crowd can put their money where their outrage is. It would be really sad to see the critters go extinct as an unintended consequence.

[TCinVA]

Any guided hunt in Africa is going to have the guides packing firearms regardless of what the hunt actually is. Because wandering around the African bush (or on Kodiak Island) without a gun is stupid.

While there are variations on this, and the particulars of each hunt vary, be clear, that when on a guided hunt, the PH or guide is the hunter, and you are the sport. That said, not many folks are going to be able to hunt without a guide in Africa or Alaska -- the logistics are near insurmountable.

I don't think people who have no hunting experience grasp this point.

Successful hunting requires a lot of specialized knowledge about the conditions in the area, patterns of the wildlife in the area, the geography of the area, and a number of other things. It's impossible for somebody to fly in for two weeks and have all that down. Hence the guide.

While it is possible to wander out into the woods and just get lucky, that's rarely successful...and in places where the bears are ten feet tall and the cats weigh a quarter of a ton, it's pretty much an invitation to disaster.