The Guardian view on Cecil the lion: the immorality is in the pleasure of the kill | Editorial
The death of so handsome a creature as Cecil the lion has rightly ignited global outrage. But why do we seem to care so much more about how an animal dies than how it lives? After all, Cecil had 13 free and happy years roaming Zimbabwe's Hwange national park. In terms of suffering, the last few hours of his life, while undoubtedly painful, can hardly be compared to the miserable factory-farmed existence of so many of the creatures that end up on our plates. Cecil's free-range existence was circumscribed by the limitations of the park - about 14,650 sq km. The average factory chicken is afforded the living space roughly equivalent to a piece of A4 paper. And they live for about six weeks, in vast filthy sheds full of their own excrement, and without any experience of sun or fresh air. From this perspective, it may seem peculiar that we focus so much of our outrage on a small-town dentist from Bloomington, Minnesota, and hand out a CBE to Bernard Matthews.
Furthermore, what is the difference between exploiting cattle for money and exploiting lions? In theory, at least, the income from licensed hunting - redistributing cash from Bloomington to Bulawayo - is redirecting money towards the greater need. So is the Cecil furore just a bit of western sentimentality from those who can hum The Circle of Life, but who have no real appreciation of what it means? Indeed, those who left fluffy toy animals outside Dr Palmer's dentist surgery as a protest certainly contribute towards this reading of events. After all, if Cecil had died after a fight with a fellow lion, his death may well have been no less painful.
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