Why bother reading, let alone posting in a HUNTING forum, if the topic offends the sensibilites so much unless you're looking to troll?
Wounded lion, like any wounded large predator poses an imminent threat to any/all in the surrounding area. Regardless of the desire to put a wounded animal out of its misery (and I wholeheartedly support that...although I try to put in enough trigger time to ensure that that doesn't become necessary) a wounded lion must be put down.
The lion in the first video actually circled back and was actively hunting the humans. My understanding is that the lion had been wounded earlier by another client who had muffed the shot. These PHs, armed trackers and perhaps a client or two were forced to clean up the mess left by that original hunter. All in the field that day were in imminent, mortal danger. To say otherwise simply shows how little you understand of Africa or hunting large predators.
It takes balls to kneel down, out in the open, with one of the preeminent large land predators stalking you just a few yards away in the thick brush. A distance that the predator can cover in seconds. In such circumstances, the human fight or flight response kicks in, massive quantities of adrenaline are dumped into the body, blood is forced away from the extremities and your fine motor skills go all to hell. It is extremely difficult for a human to continue to function under such circumstances, especially an untrained hunter/tourist.
PHs, like military and law-enforcement officers, are specifically trained to deal with such life-or-death confrontations and their training helps compensate for biology. Even then, training can only do so much. Just look how close this lion got and how many times it was missed before being put down? A couple of inches or a 1/2 second later on the kill shot and there could very well have been a dead human instead of a dead lion.
Do a search for other lion charges, I've seen many others where the lion actually made it into the circle of shooters and attacked, with wild shots going everywhere but into the lion. In many cases it was a wonder that client/tracker/PH didn't end up shooting one another in the confusion.
Wounded lion, like any wounded large predator poses an imminent threat to any/all in the surrounding area. Regardless of the desire to put a wounded animal out of its misery (and I wholeheartedly support that...although I try to put in enough trigger time to ensure that that doesn't become necessary) a wounded lion must be put down.
The lion in the first video actually circled back and was actively hunting the humans. My understanding is that the lion had been wounded earlier by another client who had muffed the shot. These PHs, armed trackers and perhaps a client or two were forced to clean up the mess left by that original hunter. All in the field that day were in imminent, mortal danger. To say otherwise simply shows how little you understand of Africa or hunting large predators.
It takes balls to kneel down, out in the open, with one of the preeminent large land predators stalking you just a few yards away in the thick brush. A distance that the predator can cover in seconds. In such circumstances, the human fight or flight response kicks in, massive quantities of adrenaline are dumped into the body, blood is forced away from the extremities and your fine motor skills go all to hell. It is extremely difficult for a human to continue to function under such circumstances, especially an untrained hunter/tourist.
PHs, like military and law-enforcement officers, are specifically trained to deal with such life-or-death confrontations and their training helps compensate for biology. Even then, training can only do so much. Just look how close this lion got and how many times it was missed before being put down? A couple of inches or a 1/2 second later on the kill shot and there could very well have been a dead human instead of a dead lion.
Do a search for other lion charges, I've seen many others where the lion actually made it into the circle of shooters and attacked, with wild shots going everywhere but into the lion. In many cases it was a wonder that client/tracker/PH didn't end up shooting one another in the confusion.
