Shooting a Lion

The Wild Life

This episode was originally written in October 2015 as a reflection essay

I acknowledge there is nuance to these issues which are not fully expressed in this essay

In The New York Times article “Shooting a Lion”, University of Cambridge professor and acclaimed writer, Helen Macdonald, details her recent safari at Kruger National Park in South Africa. Her visit was just a few short months after the Minnesota dentist, Walter Palmer, killed Cecil the lion just outside the very same park. Cecil’s killing was met with international uproar and “a white-hot debate over the morality of big game hunting”.

But there’s another kind of exploitative shooting of lions happening, only this kind isn’t with a gun, but a camera.

Transcript