Cecil Versus The Man (Or Woman)

I am careful about how I respond in cases like the killing of Cecil the Lion. Because while I absolutely cannot fathom or condone the killing of wildlife for fun, and will never defend such acts, I am aware of the incredibly difficult circumstances facing people on the ground in Zimbabwe, quite possibly leading to poor choices for economic survival. So while I suffer rage, sorrow and indignation that I want to direct not only at the American trophy hunter who killed Cecil for fun, but also at the Zimbabwean man who facilitated the killing for money, I also know that people in Zimbabwe are struggling against increasingly impossible odds. The common man in Zimbabwe today is facing choices we westerners could barely comprehend in our lives of relative ease, rule and order. Many or even most have lost everything they and their forefathers have worked for. Some in the matter of hours or even minutes. Black and white alike.

"Perhaps it is time we stop arguing about which matters more, and consider that their fates are inseparable, and matter to each other."

For me, the survival of our wilderness and wildlife anywhere is as important as that of humanity, apart from anything else, because humanity depends upon the wilderness for survival whether we recognize it or not. It's what makes our planet tick. It's also what makes our planet extraordinary and worthwhile living on. But I do understand that it's frustrating to a man forced to flee his country to survive, or to a family decimated by the rule of a sociopath, the starving man feeding his starving children, the third generation farmer who lost it all to the greed of corrupt government officials, that the dire plight of millions of Zimbabweans is not nearly as interesting to we westerners as the death of one lion. 

But while lions, elephants and rhinos would get along just fine without humans, humanity would suffer a terrible, empty, lonely, unpredictable future fraught with unintended consequences should we allow them to vanish from our earth. We should not underestimate the consequences of the death of a magnificent patriarch like Cecil to a species that is fastean lives. As for which matters more? Perhaps it is time we stop arguing about which matters mo approaching extinction.

My final analysis? Lions matter. But so do Zimbabwean lives. As for which matters more? Perhaps it is time we stop arguing about which matters more, and consider that their fates are inseparable, and matter to each other.

Yours truly looking at my favorite animal.
A live one!!

Photos by the uberfabulous Billy Dodson, www.savannaimages.com

Because we needed another blog about Cecil, here's mine.

Due to the nature of my book, Each Wind That Blows, readers have asked me about the controversy regarding the killing of Cecil the Lion. Due to the nature of my upbringing and deeply held beliefs, I’ve taken my time responding...

I've been following the Cecil story closely. I've been reading from all angles, because with my upbringing partly in Kenya and Zimbabwe, and what I know of the extreme difficulties faced by those who live there, I'm not going to rush to judgment and condemnation of anything but the reason behind, and the killing of, Cecil himself.

I am not a vegan. I do not quarrel with hunting for food, nor with hunting as a means of funding conservation. While I eat very little meat at all, when I do, I go to any length possible to ensure I am eating meat coming from an animal that lived wild and free to enjoy its state of awareness as nature intended, untill it died by the bullet or an unexpected blade. Not a sentient being raised in torturous confinement and killed in a state of extreme terror or apathy after months of suffering.

So no, I do not argue with hunting per se. Especially in a country fraught with difficulty like Zimbabwe where people survive as they may. I don't know enough to. I am not there. I try very hard to take in and give space to all points of view before making a judgment.

But yes, it’s true  - in my perfect world, trophy hunting would be but a distant, strange memory.

I simply don't understand trophy hunters. I especially do not understand the need to kill an endangered species. And here, in an excerpt from my book Each Wind That Blows, is why:

"Every trophy hunter hunts the largest, the biggest, the longest, the heaviest and thinks nothing of killing in an instant what took years of survival and well made choices under ever more challenging circumstances to develop.

I try to imagine what drives the need for such trophies, to hang a head and its lifeless glass eyes on a wall, testimony to a life that once was, vital, vibrant and magnificent, now snuffed out forever in a sinister breeze of flying bullets. I cannot imagine it feeds anything but the ego, for the soul does not sup on death and vainglory. It does not kill for the sake of killing, or see beauty only to seek its destruction.

If my journey to Kenya has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that the spirit craves and celebrates life, the manifestation and expression of Light as matter and all it entails, the creative expression of something we still do not understand but need more than life because it is life. There is nothing creative about imposing death on another being for the sake of personal glorification.

And if the teachings of the old and wise are true, then the soul records all our memories and distills them into a fine wine of learning to let us grow ever wiser in spirit. What do the memories of killing an incredible creature teach the spirit but the senseless need of ego and the numb vacuum left behind in the landscape in the wake of his fall?

Perhaps that is why some famous great white hunters like Denys Finch Hatton ultimately put down his rifle and picked up a camera, his urge to kill for trophies replaced by a need to celebrate life on film."

All images kind courtesy of my dear friend and fabulous photographer, Billy Dodson. To see these images in high resolution and/or purchase an image, please visit his gorgeous website, www.savannaimages.com