{"id":10423,"date":"2015-08-03T13:09:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T13:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10423"},"modified":"2015-08-03T13:09:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T13:09:31","slug":"cecil-becomes-martyr-to-a-worthy-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10423","title":{"rendered":"Cecil becomes martyr to a worthy cause"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/cecil.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-10424\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/cecil.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"cecil\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/cecil.jpg 1180w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/cecil-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/cecil-1024x731.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cecil the Lion might not have died in vain.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this: Outrage over the beast&#8217;s killing has spurred renewed calls for severe restrictions, even outright bans, on trophy killings of big-game animals.<\/p>\n<p>This gives me hope that we human beings can become a touch more civilized after all.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/cecil-the-lion-shows-shifting-attitudes-toward-africas-big-game\/ar-BBlkQOU<\/p>\n<p>Cecil&#8217;s death at the hands of an American dentist has prompted calls for the dentist&#8217;s return to Zimbabwe, which wants to prosecute him for poaching. Cecil was a beloved big cat, a favorite of tourists visiting the preserve where Cecil lived with his pride of lionesses and the cubs he sired. Then he was lured out of the restricted zone into a place here Palmer allegedly shot him.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s been international anger over the incident.<\/p>\n<p>I now will stipulate a couple of things.<\/p>\n<p>First, I&#8217;m not a hunter. Yes, I&#8217;ve gone hunting. My most memorable excursion was in Washington state, in 1970. I had returned home from Vietnam and went with some Army pals into the Olympic Mountains to track down a black bear. We didn&#8217;t find anything, but we had a wonderful day traipsing through the forest.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what I would have done with the beast had I shot one.<\/p>\n<p>Second, I&#8217;ve\u00a0never much liked the idea of hunting animals just to mount their head on a wall and brag about what a brave man I am. I understand that some individuals do like doing these things and in some way I also understand the thrill of tracking down big game and firing a kill shot.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s just not my thing, you know?<\/p>\n<p>Plus, being a city slicker my entire life, I&#8217;ve never had the <em>need<\/em> to hunt animals for food. But those who live in rural settings and who cannot get to the grocery store regularly, well, I can understand how hunting fits into someone&#8217;s lifestyle.<\/p>\n<p>However, I&#8217;ve long preferred to live on a planet populated by plenty of God&#8217;s other creatures.<\/p>\n<p>Cecil was one of them. His death seems to energized the feeling among millions of other humans that the world is big enough to share.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cecil the Lion might not have died in vain. Consider this: Outrage over the beast&#8217;s killing has spurred renewed calls for severe restrictions, even outright bans, on trophy killings of big-game animals. This gives me hope that we human beings can become a touch more civilized after all. http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/cecil-the-lion-shows-shifting-attitudes-toward-africas-big-game\/ar-BBlkQOU Cecil&#8217;s death at the hands of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10423\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cecil becomes martyr to a worthy cause<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[616,894,2220,3413,3617],"class_list":["post-10423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-big-game-hunting","tag-cecil-the-lion","tag-hunting","tag-olympic-mountains","tag-poaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}