Meh. You have to be pretty oblivious to think that baiting a lion to come out of a wildlife preserve is a good idea.
Reading between the lines of the liberal mass hysteria versions of the story, it sounds like this dentist may have been a little on the shady side himself when it came to bagging his prize. Something about getting in trouble while bear hunting in the states was mentioned.
There always is that idiot that has to ruin a good thing for everyone else. The chick from, what? last year, now she was a good poster child for trophy hunting in Africa being a good thing.
Moving to Texas has pretty much disabused me of any huffiness I used to have over hunting methods. "They hunt deer...
with dogs!?" "They hunt whatever_critter...
at night?!" [Runs for fainting couch.] I was brought up in a different state with different standards of hunting behavior.
They just plain do things differently here, no apologies to the hyperventilating non-Texas Fudds.
My own personal hunting ethics have been pared down to roughly the following:
1. Learn & follow local laws and practices.
2. Leave my huff on my doorstep as I leave home.
3. Get after it.
Getting back to The Great Lion Slaughter of 2015, hunting over bait was a common occurrence in all the safari books I read. Capstick & Rourke come to mind. Most common was hunting over bait for leopard. If hunting lion over bait is not a big whoop in Bungastan or wherever The Lion Saint cashed in his chips, not sure that hunting a lion that does not respect boundaries(1) over bait is any worse.
(1)Texas Property Boundary Quiz:
You start on land you know is private property on which you have permission to hunt.
1. You eventually come a place where bright yellow paint has been applied to the fence posts supporting a 4-wire barbed wire fence. Are you at a property line or not?
2. You eventually come a place where faded purple paint has been applied to the tree trunks here & there. Are you at a property line or not?
The point of the quiz is not about Texas standards for marking property boundaries, but that property boundaries may not be obvious and even if obvious, they may not be understood by a non-local. I suspect African standards for property demarcation might be even less rigorous than those in Texas.
