WE COULD APPLY A ROMAN PENALTY TO PEOPLE BEHAVING BADLY…
(by just feeding them…to those lions)

I was given my very first firearm on my 12^th birthday. It was a sleek Winchester bolt action, single shot .22 rifle. But before I was ever allowed to use it my father made me pass through a tightly disciplined period of instruction and training on how to properly and safely handle it. Only after he was thoroughly convinced I had learned that, but also absorbed and understood the consequences which could result from its misuse was I then allowed to freely roam in our fields and woodlands to hunt with it. It was a moment of great pride for me because it meant I was now considered mature and responsible enough to follow our family’s hunting tradition. A tradition that had one inviolate commandment: Never shoot at anything you can’t eat, nor, take more than you can use…even if bag limits permit it.

So because of that hunting code our lands generally teemed with game…rabbit …squirrel… deer…quail…pheasant…and seasonally…migrating wild ducks and geese. Hunting just for sport never entered our mind because it was considered deviant behavior, having no respect for other living creatures, and thus unworthy of anyone claiming to be a –hunter- or even a man. It was depravity of the worst kind and worth the severest sanctions possible.

These were the values we were taught…and still abide by today…the only exception to them being either self-defense, or, doing away with marauding predators endangering us or our livestock. Of course the only “predators” we knew of was the occasional fox or skunk raiding our chicken coop, because there were no wildcats, lynxes, wolves, cougars, or grizzlies in our neck of the woods, so the idea of “big game” hunting was an alien concept, and going after creatures such as lions, tigers, rhinos, or elephants, etc., was simply beyond our ken or comprehension.

Which is not to say we weren’t aware of such things, after all, during Frontier times, the buffalo, cougars, grizzlies, wolves, beavers, and eagles were wantonly slaughtered to near extinction here in America. Even deer, elk, pronghorns, mountain sheep, and moose suffered from heavy over-predation by humans. And much the same was happening elsewhere in the world as well…in India…with the Bengal tiger…in Africa…where anything larger than a hyena was avidly pursued by well-heeled “Bwana hunters” with their poshly-appointed safaris, vying to see who would have bragging rights for bagging the most, the biggest, and the baddest of wildlife around.

While such practices have been much reduced in modern times, they still go on…allowing folks with more money than brains to indulge their big-bad-hunter fantasies of senseless “sport” killing of other living creatures… such as-Cecil- the lion recently brutally slaughtered in Zimbabwe. As far as we’re concerned we could apply a Roman penalty to such people behaving badly…by just feeding them…to those lions. Unfortunately, that might not work too well because, at the rate they’re killing these, there may not be enough lions left…to feed them to. Furthermore, we humans don’t seem to be a very appetizing species for most self-respecting carnivores.

Well, I’ve had three so-called big game encounters in my life. The first…with a big black bear up in the Maine woods one summer’s day. Fortunately that encounter ended in a mutual case of sheer panic and simultaneous flight away from each other. The last we saw of each other…we were both looking over our shoulders to see if the other was still in pursuit. The others ended in death for two creatures, which really didn’t deserve it because we had inadvertently intruded into their domains, thereby causing the encounters resulting in their deaths.

The first of these was with a very large (nearly 500lbs) wild boar in Germany, which angrily charged out of a pine thicket as we were passing by on the trail in front of it. It was a close call, as reflex action had me discharging both barrels of my shotgun right into its charging head and face. Although that killed it, its momentum brought it sliding right up to one of my boots, where a last savage slash of its huge tusks neatly sliced through the leather of it like a razor (yet not making even a scratch on my foot).That reflex action probably saved both my hunting companion and I, along with our accompanying Jaeger Meister( German game warden) from serious injury, so both were loud in their praise of this feat…but I felt no real pride in it, even though it was clearly a case of self-defense…and wild boar was… edible (very much so)…thus easing my conscience somewhat…though still not too happy about it.

As for the third and last of these encounters, that happened in the mountain jungles of Northern Laos where I had gone with several others from our mission to do a terrain recon of that area. Accompanied by two local hill tribesmen with muzzle loading muskets, our small party was on its way back to base after several days in the bush. We were following a very narrow trail hemmed in by jungle growth and steeply dropping terrain on both sides. Since it was coming on to sundown we halted and prepared to make camp at the only widening spot in the trail, hunkering down around a small pit we dug out in the middle of it for a campfire to heat our rations. It was soon dark, so we settled down around it as best we could, drinking coffee, chatting, etc.. Suddenly, a loudly rasping angry screeching snarl came out of the darkness up trail from us. Everyone froze…the elder tribesman looked at me and softly said…Pao! Pao! Leopard! Leopard!…and grimly griped his musket. A second even louder and angrier sounding snarl then followed, while my companions tried hastily to crouch further away on each side of the glowing fire pit.

But I was sitting cross-legged on the ground just down trail from it so really could not move away to the side. Then it happened…a snarling screeching form lunged out of that darkness, leaping over the fire right at me, so, my reaction was to fall back flat on my back and, in reflex, draw and fire my .45 pistol three times up into the form passing over me, barely missing my head…to land dead a few yards further down the trail behind me.

Still somewhat in shock, we all stayed still; but then, by the glare of a number of flash lights some of our party turned on, we all saw the inert form of what had been a powerful and beautiful –Clouded Leopard – a good seven feet long from nose to tail. Even in death the power of its form and the beauty of its fur with its unique markings were impressive. Once again, my companion’s praises were no comfort. I only felt heavy regret, but the old hill tribe hunter sensing and understanding my feelings, gently patted my shoulder saying…Bo pen… Bo Pen…never mind…never mind. It was small comfort because I couldn’t help feeling it was a needless kill…since the leopard was obviously not attacking, but only trying to leap over us humans who had been blocking its way along that trail.

By their custom both tribesmen offered me the leopard’s claws and its two fangs, as trophies and respect for my skill. Not wanting to offend them, I was forced to accept these, no matter how strongly I felt against taking such a trophy, so I gave them away as soon as I was able to my companions who, apparently, had no such qualms about it. But it would be a long time before I recovered from my sense of guilt about killing such a beautiful creature… and I’ve never hunted anything since that day.

Yet the reality is that no matter how much some of us might object to the idea of hunting just for “sport”, there are even worse and more damnable kinds of it going on. That is, those who poach and kill other creatures solely for profit…to feed the twisted cravings some folks have for their parts or organs…elephants’ ivory…tigers’ bones, skins, and skulls…rhinos’ horns…bears’ gall bladders…even gorillas and other great apes’ parts and meat.

That…has to be one of the more disgusting character traits of our human species.

CENTURION

IN MEMORIUM CECIL