The only killer dentist I’d ever heard of was Doc Holliday.
Until now.
Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist, has been all over the news recently in connection with the perhaps-legal, perhaps-not killing of Cecil, a much-loved and protected lion in Zimbabwe. Reportedly, Palmer’s hobby is hunting big-game animals for trophies, and the Internet is full of photos purportedly of the dentist posing with the corpses of creatures he killed. Authorities from the African nation now are looking at Palmer as part of a poaching investigation, according to reports.
Whatever eventually happens in the case of Cecil the lion, it may do some good if it sparks revulsion toward the sport of hunting.
Did I say sport? Well, “sport” in the sense that baseball would be a “sport” if one team had nine players and six outs while the other team got three players and two outs.
Implicit in the concept of sport is that it is a competition of equals. In hunting, the animal hasn’t a chance. Hunters have high-powered weapons, electronic tracking equipment, vehicles and guides.
Some hunters claim they are true conservators and lovers of nature. It’s an interesting argument – that you show love by killing the object of your affection.
Others argue that people who eat meat are hypocrites and have no right to criticize hunters. After all, that BLT you had for lunch once was an animal, and that animal was killed.
While it is true that hunting and meat-eating both result in the death of animals, there is a mega-difference.
Killing your own food once was – and in some places still is – necessary. But in most arenas of modern society, hunting and killing animals is not a necessity. It is a choice.
Hunters choose to inflict pain, suffering and sometimes, unfortunately, extinction on animals. They derive pleasure from this, pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering and death. They enjoy killing.
It took Cecil the lion 40 hours to die, according to news reports.
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The dentist’s arrow – that’s right, arrow – merely wounded him. It took 40 hours to track the lion and kill him with a gun, according to published reports.
But let’s not get carried away. These are only animals, right? It’s not like hunters kill people.
Maybe that’s true.
But how often have you seen a nature documentary or a segment on the news that shows researchers are finding that animals know more, think more, feel more and communicate more than we hitherto had thought?
How can we say what Cecil the lion felt, thought and endured during those 40 agonizing hours before he finally was harvested?
And, sadly, whatever is the outcome of the Palmer case, killing for pleasure will go on.
Here in Illinois, more opportunities to kill for pleasure were created last month, when Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law a bill to legalize the hunting and trapping of bobcats – bows and arrows allowed. I guess, unfortunately, there’s only one thing left to say:
Tally ho!
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.