Zimbabweans will tell you that every lion head hanging from a rich white dentist's wall is one less lion roaming through their village and gobbling up their chirruns.
To me, as long as he wasn't the one holding out a pack of hotdogs saying, "Here kitty kitty" to lure it away from a protected area, the hunt was legal. He paid for the government issued permit and had the guides. If any shenanigans occurred, it seems to me that would fall under the responsibility of the guides.
On private property in Africa, baiting and hunting at night is legal.
I don't know all the particulars here, and said that it's very possible that he hired an unscrupulous guide. Also, people act like this guy walked in a zoo and killed this lion. Hwange National Park is slightly larger than the state of Connecticut in square miles. Cecil, tracking collar and all, was as wild as a lion gets considering he lived mostly in a refuge that, as far as I know, doesn't allow hunting. He was not a pet lion like most would have you believe. Hwange is not fenced. It was known that Cecil ranged off the Park lands.
Besides, Cecil was nothing but a trespasser, overthrower, and a murderer himself. He had another lion assassinated in order to score his pussy and turf.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cecil-lion-last-photo-he-811838"
Cecil was first identified in 2008 or 2009, when he was spotted with his brother at a watering hole on the southern boundary of Hwange park called Magisole Pan, which translates to "White Man's watering hole." The brothers were named after two powerful white men — Cecil Rhodes, a mining tycoon and politician in South Africa and Leander Starr Jameson, the second Administrator of Rhodesia.
Cecil became the most dominant male in Hwange park when a fight between the two brothers and another dominant male named Mpofu led to the death of Leander. Mpofu sustained critical injuries and ultimately had to be put down by park rangers, leaving Cecil to assume the position of dominance in the area.
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