Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer may be perfectly good at his job, but his Yelp reviews are currently sitting at a solid one star. Palmer recently admitted to killing Cecil the lion, a famous attraction in a Zimbabwean national park. Cecil was illegally lured outside the park using bait, shot with an arrow, and left to die. Hunting opponents have spammed Palmer's pages with online abuse, suggesting that he should be hunted himself.
Palmer claims to have believed the whole process was legal, though he did nothing to check. He's "quite upset" about the slating he's taking online, especially since the rest of his dirty laundry, such as a $127,000 fine for sexual harassment and several significant fines for violating hunting laws in the US, has been hung out online.
But this unpleasant individual is only a small part of a bigger problem.
US hunting culture can be hard for non-Americans to process, especially people who come from more crowded, less wild countries. In many parts of the US, going off to shoot deer is a regular pastime, one that spans class divides.
But deer populations often need culling, it's no stranger or crueler than the industrialized slaughter on which all meat-eaters depend, and many hunters are responsible, conservation-minded individuals who stick to the rules.
But big game hunting in Africa is in a whole different category, unfortunately. An influx of dumb, rich US "trophy hunters" has helped fuel an industry that skirts the edges of legality when it doesn't ignore the law altogether, and which poses a serious risk to endangered animal populations.
Most trophy hunts work this way. The American hunters - often in groups - are flown to an African country, most prominently Kenya or South Africa, as part of an everything-arranged tour.
They pay heavily for the privilege; even at the low end, where all you do is murder a warthog or a few deer, the cost is $5000 or more. For an elephant or a lion, the total can rise to over $50,000.
The tour arrangers promise that the process is legal, but the Americans make little or no effort to check, and the rules, as in the killing of the unfortunate Cecil, are often broken.
Claims that some proportion of the funds go to conservation efforts are often equally spurious.
Local guides take them out to "stalk" the animal, a process often no more complicated than sticking near potential prey.
Many wild animals, such as big cats, have little fear of the vehicles they regularly see. Once they're close enough, the American tourist shoots the beast from a safe distance, and then poses over the corpse triumphantly before taking some trophy to demonstrate their "skill" as a hunter.
Later, a lion's head or rhino's horn decorates a mantelpiece in the Midwest.
The whole thing is cruel, unnecessary, and destructive, as well as being unpleasantly redolent of colonial expeditions. The bow hunting practiced by Palmer adds an exceptionally sadistic element; the expectation is that the animal will be wounded and take hours or days to die, while the hunters watch and follow at a distance.
At the very least, it needs cross-continental regulation, with African countries working together with the US and others to help control the trade. Previous efforts at battling poachers across Africa, especially the criminals feeding the Asian market for magical medical ingredients taken from rare species, have been moderately successful.
The US authorities can play a greater role in preventing the import of trophies, and allowing the prosecution or extradition of individuals accused of breaking Africa's laws. Meanwhile, responsible safari organizers, where the worst harm done to the animals is an unflattering photograph, can be promoted and the licenses of groups that break the rules suspended.
Cecil's loss stung because he was famous, but thousands of nameless animals fall victim to the practice every year. Trophy hunting has already played a part in wiping out many large mammal species, including the white rhino. If left unchecked, this peculiar desire to kill beautiful creatures could help contribute to the loss of more species.
The author is a commentator on current affairs based in Beijing. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn