Open Letter to Walter Palmer
I am not going to start this off by calling you names and
wishing you death. This won’t get us anywhere. Instead, I am going to be civil
when I ask you the following questions.
Hunting is something I hate, but understand. Although I am a
city girl, my father grew up on a farm in Montana. When he was in college, he
went hunting to help him feed himself something besides ramen. But he shot deer. He ate
the meat of the deer he shot. He didn’t leave it to rot. Hunting to feed
yourself is something I understand. If you use all of the animal, you aren’t
just killing to kill. That leads me to my questions.
Why did you feel the need to kill a beautiful, nearly
endangered lion? Whether you thought the hunt was legal or not, why did you
feel the need to hunt a lion? You aren’t eating the meat, you just shot it with
an arrow, let him bleed for forty hours and then finally put the poor animal
out of its misery. Why? What is so appealing about hunting a lion? I don’t know
what else you hunt besides lions and the other pictures available online which
include a majestic cheetah, and a beautiful rhinoceros. I also heard a rumor
you wanted to kill an elephant. Can you somehow explain it to me why you feel
the need to kill those animals?
Does it make you feel like a man? In order to feel strong do
you have to end the life of an animal? But not just any animal, one that is
nearly endangered and one of the most majestic things in the world. Do you need
to kill a beautiful animal and skin it and behead it for a trophy to feel tough
and manly? How is killing an animal with a bow or gun even fair? If you are
doing it to feel tough, then why do you use an unfair weapon. Why not use a
spear? That is the only fair way to go after a lion. That would be a fair
fight. That would be proving you are a man. Shooting one with a bow, after
luring it out of the park it lived in, then shooting it is not manly, it is
cowardly.
So maybe next time you feel the need to show your friends
that you are a man, that you are tough and big, do it without murdering an
innocent animal that you aren’t using the meet for. Do it without shooting it
with an arrow and letting it bleed for forty hours, and without baiting it away
from its home. Instead go take some supplies as many or as little as you want
and go living in the woods for a while. Live off the land. Go chop some wood, or
catch a fish, gut it and eat it. Do something
with nature that isn’t murdering an animal for sport and trophy.
Just do something that doesn’t end the life of a majestic creature
for sport, because when you do, you are not a man. You are a coward, and that is all you will
ever be.
