I'm sorry Cecil.

So, I have this habit. I have a tendency to want to document and commemorate experiences. Most of the time I do so with a camera. And often times, I want some kind of souvenir--something that says "I did this," or "I was here."

I think a lot of us are like that. We somehow want "a piece" of our moments that is more tangible than just the memory. Perhaps, we want a "trophy."

In the wake of the killing and mutilation of Cecil the lion, it occurs to me that while I do not own a gun or hunt, I am guilty.

We don't have to be trophy hunters to be complicit in these senseless acts. All we have to be are idle bystanders. 

We, in America, live in a country where food is plentiful, and except for the culture of greed and turning a blind eye, there is no need for people to go hungry. Very few people actually need to hunt and kill any wild animal in order to eat or survive. A good (or bad) portion of our nation's hungry are women and children in our urban core, not in areas where people are likely to hunt.

Every hunting season, the photos start to pop up in my Facebook Newsfeed--those photos of proud men and boys, all posing with the beautiful trophy creature they have so needlessly and skillfully taken down. 

Give me all the defenses of hunting when you don't need food that you want. It helps control populations by decreasing herd numbers and removing the weaker individuals. It's a family tradition. It's a coming of age rite of passage. It helps youngsters learn gun safety and conservation.

I honestly couldn't care less about any of these "reasons." 

I frequently see photos in my newsfeed of big game hunters who kill for the sheer sport of it--individuals who want to be able to say they killed a leopard, a giraffe, an elephant, a rhino. It's as if killing something either gives you power over it, or helps you commune with its spirit. Frankly, all it does is leave something beautiful dead. 

Humans are capable of so much good. We are the "intelligent" animal. We can reason. We are inventive. We are curious. But sadly, it often seems like above all of these traits, we are consumers. We have a great sense of entitlement. Many of us still refuse to see our role in the destruction of natural habitats and natural resources. And while someday, this denial will be to our own detriment, and that of our children, today, we are complacent. 

We kill elephants for their ivory tusks, because we believe we are entitled to them for decorative purposes. We kill rhinos because we believe their horns have medicinal properties. We kill tigers because they are said to have medicinal properties as well. We kill wales because our ancestors always have. We kill because it satisfies some warped need we have to prove our dominance over an animal kingdom that would otherwise be essentially indifferent to our existence. 

We kill, because we can. We consume, because it's our unfortunate nature. 

The world is up in arms over a man killing a beloved lion. They are offended by the photos of him holding the carcasses of his proudly obliterated prizes. Where were we when all but a handful of white rhinos were allowed to be poached to almost certain extinction? Where were we when the polar bears started having to swim for days to find food because the sea ice on which they live is retreating--due to global warming, caused by us? Where are we when people in the countries in which these animals live have no better means of supporting their families than to feed our culture of consumption and entitlement? 

I realize friends who value the hunting experience in their families may be offended by my feelings about hunting. But none of the people I know who hunt, or support hunting do so because they need to. And while it may be offensive to be called out for that, it should be no more offensive than all of the dead deer photos I hide from my Facebook Newsfeed every season because I just don't want to see the pride in these needless kills. 

When we look to heritage, most of us must remember that there were people who came before us--people who had a respect and love for the land and everything in nature. Their lives depended upon it. They took none of it for granted and they were grateful for its bounty. 

In a culture of consumption, collection and trophy hunting, perhaps the thing we miss the most is presence of mind--our presence in moments, instead of our collection of proofs. 

Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish Indians of Puget Sound, Washington is credited with saying that we should "take only memories, leave nothing but footprints." 

A man from Minnesota has taken the head and skin of a lion, but certainly not the lion's heart or soul. It is likely that Cecil's progeny will also be killed because of this senseless act. A ripple effect. The memory we will all have of this man is one of selfishness and waste. But at the end of the day, he and this memory are only the personification of all that we take, and all that we do not do in the name of our entitlement to consume everything in our path. 

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