The death of Cecil the lion has turned into the hunt for Walter Palmer as the Minnesota dentist revealed as the beloved lion’s killer has gone underground to avoid questions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the wrath the collective Internet.
As the vitriol directed at Palmer spread this week, so did expressions of the sentiment that if we could spare the outrage for a beheaded lion, we should be able to spare some outrage for a variety of non-lion things:
Other animals that have died recently
There are endangered animals at risk all over the world, not least in Africa. Five elephants were killed for their tusks in Kenya, the Washington Post noted, “as the world mourned Cecil the lion.”
The animals in need of attention aren’t all rare. They might just be prepared rare.
Abortion
Florida Senator and 2016 presidential hopeful Marco Rubio had something to say about Cecil and some videos he’s been watching, and there was no shortage of conservatives chiming in with similar thoughts.
Black Lives Matter
Sandra Bland, Sam DuBose, and others who have died in police custody or as a result of police violence were mentioned by activists as deserving some of the attention directed toward the death of Cecil.*
People in Zimbabwe
As Retuers pointed out Thursday the sentiment stirred by Cecil’s death is not shared by many Zimbabweans, and the outpouring of grief is perplexing to people dealing with tough economic and social problems in addition to the occasional threat to life and property by wild animals:
“Why are the Americans more concerned than us?” said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. “We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange.”
*Correction, July 31, 2015: This post originally misspelled the name of Sam DuBose.