The discovery that Cecil, one of the most beloved lions in Africa and the world, was savagely killed and beheaded by an American dentist has generated well-deserved outrage around the world. Well, Ted Nugent let it be known yesterday that he’s outraged at the outrage over this act of barbarism. As far as he’s concerned, we’re all “stupid” to be so upset over something that he seems to think has been completely made up.
When one of Nugent’s Facebook followers asked him what he thought about Cecil’s killing, the Nuge responded with something that is breathtakingly tone-deaf, even by his low standards. In fact, it has to be reproduced in full to be believed.
“the whole story is a lie. It was a wild lion from a “park” where hunting is legal & ESSENTIAL beyond the park borders. all animals reproduce every year & would run out of room/food to live w/o hunting. I will write a full piece on this joke asap. God are people stupid”
Um, Ted? The reason Cecil was out of his home in Hwange National Park was that he was lured out by members of Walter Palmer’s hunting party who tied a dead animal to their ATV. If you’re seriously going to overlook that, then you might as well sound like a Peanuts adult.
Zimbabwean authorities maintain that the hunt was outrageously illegal. But even if it isn’t, there is no doubt that it was 100,000 percent wrong and unethical. Field & Stream’s Jonny Miles told ThinkProgress that the hunt was an “abomination” due to the way it was conducted. Palmer’s henchmen shone a spotlight on Cecil, Palmer, whose day job is being a dentist in the Twin Cities, shot him with a crossbow. Palmer then tracked the crippled lion for 40 hours before shooting him dead and beheading him. Miles spoke for a lot of us when he said that it was “an incredibly unethical, unscrupulous way” to hunt big game.
Moreover, this dentist’s actions violated one of the most sacred principles of hunting–“fair chase.” Put succinctly, fair chase requires that the hunter not have an unfair advantage over his prey. Tracking a severely crippled lion for 40 hours is as egregious a violation of that principle as it gets. And Nugent thinks that we’re “stupid” to be outraged over this? Somebody’s being stupid here–and it definitely isn’t those who want this dentist frogmarched.
Nugent is one of the last people who should be lecturing us on this. In 2009, he was caught on tape violating several California gaming laws on “Spirit of the Wild,” his longtime show on Outdoor Channel. Not only did he kill a buck who was too young to be hunted, but he lured the buck with commercial bait. He pleaded no contest to charges related to the hunt in 2010, and was fined $1,750. And in 2012, he admitted to illegally killing black bears in Alaska. But even without this, how can anyone with a soul be outraged at the outrage over Palmer’s unethical and criminal acts?
We’ve learned not to expect much from Nugent. This is, remember, a guy who called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” But does he have to be wrong now?
