Why Kill A Lion?

Cricket does not approve of lion killing    Of course, Cecil the Lion is on my mind this week.  Also the nameless leopard, the illegal bear, and the many other animals Dr. Palmer killed for no reason except that he apparently likes to kill beautiful creatures. Then, of course, there's that sexual harassment suit he settled on, which I think is all part of the same issue.
     While Dr. Palmer puts out statements saying he relied on his guides and thought he was legal in what he refers to as ‘the taking’ of Cecil (aka - the killing), lots of the conversation on Facebook is suggesting that he’s totally missed the point, and rightly so.  Legal or illegal doesn’t really matter.  What everyone wants to know is why he thinks it’s fun to kill such incredible, beautiful, and increasingly rare wild animals.  What possible pleasure could come from that? Makes me weep    I’m thinking of this photo of him, hoisting the carcass of a most beautiful leopard.  Every time I see it, I want to weep.  He had no need to kill that big cat.  He had no cause to take its life.  He has no reason for pride in having done so, because his killing put nothing good into the world.  In fact, it only took away.       So why does he grin with such immensely undeserved pride in such photos?  Why does he puff up like a blowfish, as if he’s actually accomplished something?       I have some theories.  We all do.  Before I say them, let’s keep a couple of things in mind.     First, I’m not against hunting in general.  My father was a hunter and a fisher.  I grew up on deer meat, rabbit meat, turtle soup and trout, pheasant, and the occasional squirrel.  For him and for us, hunting put food on the table. We used all the parts, even sending the skins to a tanning guy who made them into shoes and gloves, and we were aware that this was no game.  When he took my brothers out hunting with him, he’d give them each one bullet.  If they needed another one, they had to find him to get it.  He triple locked his guns in a cabinet in the cellar, and God help any one of us he found near it without his permission.     I also personally know at least one hunter who goes on Safari, both here and in other countries, responsibly.  He hunts wild boar in Florida, and the meat is fed to the local puma population, which needs our support.  He hunts in Africa, but only game that can be donated to villages as food.  So it is possible to hunt with a sense of your larger place in the scheme of things.      My Lithuanian ancestors knew this. They had a prayer which said, in part: 
  That my hands  may never become bloody from human blood. That the blood of animals, fish  or birds may not soil my hands, if I might kill them satiated and not hungry.  Those who today kill animals with delight will tomorrow drink human blood.  
That I may not fell a single tree without holy need; that I may not step on a blooming  field; that I may always plant trees.
   This prayer recognizes that we’re predators, but also says we shouldn’t be predators who take life for personal fun.  As a species, that’s the wrong direction to go.      Clearly, Dr. Palmer doesn’t feel that way.  And here’s my next point.  He’s not the only one.  He’s just become the poster boy for Idiots With Guns.   A 2011 report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare says that between 1999 and 2008 Americans ‘lion trophies’ accounted for 64% of all African Lions killed for sport. And there are only about 30,000 lions left in the world.  In the whole world.  Then, of course, there’s the poaching of leopards for their skin, the decimation of jaguar habitat for drug lords .  Let’s also keep in mind that in the middle ages, when the church decided to kill all the cats as familiars of the devil, they ran into the problem of too many rats carrying the plague.  At what point, one wonders, will we get it clue that it’s not good to mess with cats, large or small?     Never mind.  Back to the question:  Why does Dr. Palmer do that?  What’s the pleasure in this particular kind of killing?  How can anyone feel it as pleasure?   Certainly they could make other choices as hunters, as humans.     There’s two different ways I think of it.  One of them is from my series of novels, the “fear” series featuring Jaguar Addams. She works in a prison system that believes all crime grows from fear, and her job is to use her telepathic gifts to make criminals face and overcome the fears that drove their crimes.  She says of one man who is like Dr. Palmer, “He’s a petty fascist pig dog who substitutes a gun for the deficit of a tiny prick.”     Yeah.  It could be that, metaphorically speaking. And there may even be a gender component involved.  After all, let’s admit that cats are associated with the human female.  I know lots of people who always call cats ‘she’ even when they’re male.  Perhaps those who are fearful, insecure about their personal power try to prove it to themselves by killing some large cat creature more powerful, more beautiful in life and spirit, than they could ever be.    Or maybe gender doesn’t matter, since Cecil was a big boy.  Maybe they just confuse killing with power, not understanding that killing is commonplace, petty, requires very limited intelligence, skill, or strength.  And what you get at the end doesn’t enrich your life in any way.  It just makes the rest of us poorer.    I’m also thinking of a character in another novel, The Amber , where one of the main characters has sold his soul for the chance to control a woman.  She is like that Leopard Dr. Palmer hoists against his bare chest.  She’s beautiful, and powerful in life, with certain gifts, certain magic he can’t quite grasp how to find in himself.  So instead he kills her, and for a short while feels that as control.  But then it ends up costing him his soul, and as a soulless man he doesn’t feel, can’t taste his food, can’t even get drunk.  He also realizes that the woman he killed and all her power still belongs only to herself, even in her death.        Make no mistake:  Even before all the furor about Cecil, Dr. Palmer sold his soul, craving a power and control he’ll never find through killing. Perhaps that’s why he, and others like him, seek incrementally greater, larger, prey.  The hole in their souls is never filled, because what they seek can’t be found through death. True strength, true pride, never comes from destruction.  It grows only from acts of creation and giving.  Power comes not from putting ourselves above the power of others, but from recognizing the power we gain when we connect with the greater powers all around us, and help others to do the same.        That’s a lesson we all need to learn again and again, in many ways.  Certainly it’s a lesson Dr. Palmer and others like him need to learn. Now, we just have to figure out how to teach them.    In my novels, many of the men learn such lessons from their interactions with goddess-like women such as Jaguar and Austeja.  In this case, we can only hope that Cecil, a magnificent male, has made a sacrifice of his life to help some much weaker human men learn that killing did the opposite of confirming their self-worth.  In fact, they’ll have to work a lot harder in order to be as important, as powerful, as strikingly gorgeous, and as well-loved, as he was.
    You can learn more about Jaguar at Wildside Press .  You can find The Amber at Amazon.com.   Now, here’s some food for the soul, to help you in your work of making the world a better place.  
      SQUASH BLOSSOM GELATO        Yes.  Really.  It’s a good way of keeping the zucchini population in balance, and tasty, too!

INGREDIENTS
1 cup milk1/2 cup honey1 cup1/2 tsp salt3 egg yolks (Preferably duck eggs, but chicken eggs will do)1 cup heavy creamAbout 1/8 tsp grated fresh nutmeg1/2 cup pine nuts2 cups squash blossoms (from pumpkin, zucchini or other squash is fine)

Get a pan hot on the stove, medium high, and toss the pine nuts into it.  Toast them until golden brown and WATCH THEM!  Don’t let them burn and lose their souls.  When they’re done, take them off the heat and coat them in honey.  Put aside for now.  They’ll reclaim themselves later.
Chop up the squash blossoms, using mostly the orange parts, though you can also pull out the stamens and pistils and include that in the mix. 
Put the milk, sugar, and 1/2 cup of the squash blossoms in a saucepan, on medium high heat until the sugar dissolves.  Add the nutmeg, and if you want, you can try a little cinnamon as well because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!   Stir until milk just comes to a boil, then take the saucepan off the heat and stir a little more.  Let it cool for about 15 minutes.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and remaining sugar until fluffy and happy.  Pour a little of the milk mixture into this, and mix it well, tempering the mixture.  Then slowly add this back into the milk mixture, stirring constantly.  
Put it back on the stove, on medium heat, and stir, stir, stir, until the mixture begins to thicken.  When it can coat the back of a spoon, take it off the heat.  Put it in the fridge and let it get cool and rested for at least an hour.  You can certainly leave it overnight,  and do the rest in the morning.
When you’re ready, add the cream to the ‘custard’ and put it all in your favorite ice cream maker.  While it’s churning and freezing, drop in the remainder of the squash blossoms.  

Now you can either eat it, or put it in the freezer for later, to be enjoyed with even more honey and nutmeg and pine nuts drizzled on top if you like.