Tonight I decided to follow some links on blogs. Which of course, can take you to the Netherword.
I found this which I will tell you outright is a video of a guide bringing a hunter in to kill a trophy lion, and the lion's attempt to avoid them, and then his strike back when he realizes he is doomed.
If you want to see power, you will see it here, but the lion loses in the end.
I watched this over about three times. I don't know why. I think because it symbolized the human attitude toward nature as well as tragedy. There is nothing but respect and sympathy and grace and power when you watch the lion. However, the humans degrade into terror (blasting away at the lion indescriminately when they suddenly realize that, gosh, it ain't so helpless, is it), and the rather frantic laughter afterward, and the absurd congratulations and backslapping, when the lion is safely dead. And then, of course, all of us watching the video. What do we take away from it?
I wonder what the hunter took away from it? That strong but outmatched creature, coming straight at him, fighting for his life? The fact that he, the hunter, survived by chance, and that wise (tried to walk away) and brave(struck back when there was no other option) creature, who went down fighting, was butchered, not for survival or meat on the table, but a trophy and the thrill of killing something.
Without the guns, we are nothing much. We like to say humans are superior, except the majority of us couldn't build a gun if we had to...or even a bow. On our own, we'd have to learn all over again, if we survived so long. We are living on the legacy of humans before us who hunted to survive. It seems to me, when we hunt like this, we abuse that legacy. Why is there that drive in humans to take more than we need? Why is that hunting was never allowed to become a sensible and needful pursuit--the hunting of the caribou by the wolf or the gazelle by the lion--but always has gone so far, into a personal glory and abuse?
4 comments:
can't bear to watch that.
I think that the pussycats realize at some point how pathetic we are - we might be big - but we can't run, can't jump, we're really clumsy with our feet, no claws, no teeth to speak of, mostly deaf, don't know the good hiding places and couldn't fit in 'em if we did. Just gigantic larvae with a strange and useful ability to open cans and doors.
My father is a big game hunter, I have also been on a couple of hunts in Africa. Keep reading, I have a reason for posting.
You say it was just for the trophy, it's not. For the hunter it is, but they also just paid about 20,000 for the right. If they do kill a lion, all that is typically kept is the head, everything else is eaten. Nothing is wasted, they can't afford to. It's Africa. Yes it is a poor kitty. But there is also the threat of overpopulation, which you don't take into account.
my e-mail is blue_metal2001 at yahoo if you want to continue this.
Megan
Hey Megan.
Thanks for your post. I actually was remarking less on the hunt, and more on the power of the lion, the laughter of the hunters after the close call, and our own voyeurism (myself included) at watching it.
"Poor kitty?" Where did that come from, I wonder. Not from this blog.
Well, I re-read my post, and I WAS commenting on the hunting, wasn't I? And reading it over, I stand by it. I'm from a hunting and trapping background...and was a for-profit nuisance trapper for 15 years. And that video still strikes me as a good example of the hubris of our culture.
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