Masculinity and nature

Cecil the lion: Jimmy Kimmel breaks down on air as he condemns animal's killing

Wow.  Jimmy Kimmel made his name on "The Man Show", didn't he?:  a low brow comedy that joked about masculinity in quite an un-PC, right wing sort of fashion.   (The co-host Adam Carolla appears to make a name for himself still by being the favourite comedian of sites like Breitbart.)

Yet Kimmel gets emotional talking about Cecil the lion.

It's pretty amazing how strongly most of the West has turned against trophy hunting, where what was once seen as something a strong man would naturally like to do (up to perhaps about the 1960's, I reckon) is now condemned as sign of inadequacy. 

Yet, as this Washington Post story notes, it is still big business in Africa, fed mostly by Americans, and includes those ridiculous cases where captive animals are bred and hunted for fun, or whatever the motivation is for this activity.

There's no doubt there is a very different view of our relationship with nature now, but there is still a strong cultural element about it all - it seems to me that the Chinese are far, far behind the West in having empathy  for animal suffering, and the reasons for that I do not know.  (I should Google it one day...)   

I suspect that this story is leading more people to cast a skeptical eye on the claim that trophy hunting is a good, or valid, way of raising money for animal conservation. 

Good.