CECIL THE LION & Peter Hathaway CAPSTICK:

This photo is (or rather was) 'Cecil The Lion' - This morning  I heard that the Zimbabwean Courts have thrown out all charges relating to the legal shooting of this mature meat eater by licensed shooter, Dentist Walter Palmer from US. - The High Court also dismissed all charges against his commercially permitted fellow local hunter Theo Bronkhorst.

You will likely remember the fuss made about this collared lions death and all the outrage directed at the folk involved in it. - Large sums of money were donated by animal rights "conservationists" screaming for the dentist hunter to be executed and/or jailed for life for the killing of a "tame" lion.

This lion 'Cecil' was found to be wearing a tracking collar after it was legally shot.

It is a happy coincidence  that I'm right now reading DEATH IN THE LONG GRASS by Capstick - A great book about hunting in Africa - and about lions. I won't go into too much detail about the sounds and smells of crunching and slurping as a lion eats into readily available human body parts & skulls - however .. A few Facts as recorded:

Peter Turnbull-Kemp recorded the age and condition of eighty-nine man-eating lions known personally to him.

Contra to sympathetic fable - that excuses Felidae man-eaters as merely furry cuddly toys that have become too old and sick to catch their usual four-footed prey - He found the following:

Out of the eighty-nine homicidal killers he personally witnessed (examined dead) - 91 per cent were in good or fair condition - only 13.3% were 'aged' and only 4.4% were aged & injured.

Mr Capstick early in the book tells of the sad incident when couples on their honeymoon trip in Wankie National Park (Rhodesia 1972) were targeted by three lions and dragged from their tent while unable to access their rifles that were locked away in compliance with the legal regulations.

 One of the party managed to start a Honda electric generator and unlock the storeroom to retrieve and load two rifles while the frantic struggle and bloody CQC feeding progressed to its eventual resolution. Len Harvey together with most of his face retrieved from the lionesses stomach was buried the following day. The others survived their serious injuries in varying degrees.


It's some twenty years since Capstick left the party early - from heart disease in 1996  - too young at only 56. Those of us who have enjoyed smoking and a malt or two should take note.

This american born "White Hunter" had a great life in his adopted continent - but here is the important bit .. he wrote about it superbly in some 13 books that can be found at a reasonable cost on Kindle.

Plenty of stirring tales to get your blood singing for sure .. but all done well and spiced with a sense of humor that lightens the tales - that are sometimes dark & bloody..  MANEATERS.

The point here is that lions - like us - are meat eaters. Man (like the lion) is a killer. It is only in the last few decades that meat started to arrive at many of our plates supermarket-seal-wrapped in clear plastic laying on a soft and redly moist tray.

Marty K.