Following the death of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, many governments are beginning to question the ethics and fallout of trophy hunting as a sport, while others say the arguments against it are overblown. The Onion breaks down the pros and cons of big-game hunting:
PRO
- Gives animal kingdom stern reminder about who’s top dog
- Get to be one of very few people to experience raw, primal exhilaration of being reviled by tens of millions of people
- Lot of empty wall space in apartment
- Killing fun
- Chance of being killed by lion drastically reduced once they are extinct
- Part of time-honored tradition that dates all the way back to humankind’s earliest assholes
CON
- Shoulder pain from recoil of elephant gun
- Already hard enough for female lions to find decent mate
- Taxidermists often get eyes wrong
- Bizarre sexual gratification of murdering large game can only satisfy for so long before you must turn to humans
- Lion’s next of kin only get small portion of hunting fee
- When people ask “Do you shoot defenseless animals with metal arrows, wait until they bleed out, and then stuff their remains for decoration?” the answer is “Yes”
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