My blog contains a humorous and inspirational view of life, death, the workplace, spirituality, love, nature, creativity, Hollywood — Plus provocative interviews with some extraordinary participants in the games we all play.

THE HUMAN RACE

KILLING INNOCENT ANIMALS  IN WORLD JUNGLES IS A HUMAN DISGRACE!

     What if poachers in Africa and other countries of the world killed Dumbo, Ruby the Rhino, Tony the Tiger, Smokey the Bear, Magilla the Gorilla, or Peter Potamus the hippopotamus or Simba The Lion King? Wouldn’t that piss you off?

     Of course, the above names belong to cartoon characters. But what if they were true to life animals killed by poachers in the jungles of the world? For instance, let’s identify Cecil, a magnificent adult lion, recently killed in Zimbabwe, to a famous cartoon celebrity many of us might recognize as Simba The Lion King?

     Cecil reportedly was murdered by a 55-year-old dentist identified by Associated Press as Walter Palmer from Eden Prairie, Minneapolis. Armed with a crossbow and protected by armed

guides, he killed Cecil who at the time of death was wearing a collar and was lured from a protected area early this month (July) where he was assassinated.      So Palmer, a big game hunter, was identified by the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, the Safari Operators Assn. of Zimbabwe and police authorities as an American facing poaching charges for the crossbow incident.

     Cecil was more than a statistic. He was a beautiful animal who was denied the right to live in Zimbabwe by a dentist who AP reportedly paid $50,000 for the sordid trek to kill a defenseless lion. So, there goes another Simba The Lion King to the sport of death.

     What a trophy he would make for the wealthy dentist who in 2008 AP says pleaded guilty to making false statements to wildlife officials about fatally shooting a black bear in Wisconsin in 2006.

     For cartoon identification purposes, let’s call that bear, Smokey. For making false statements to wildlife officials about the bear (Smokey), Palmer was put on a year’s promotion and fined a couple of thousand bucks. Despite the two killings, old Walter will never wind up in The Big House.

     If he ever goes on a big hunt, authorities should demand that he must replace steel-tipped arrows with suction cups. That’d make the odds more even.

     Several months ago, I wrote another story about poachers, using Dumbo, Walt Disney’s adorable little elephant, as the main character. My intention was to make readers realize that the mass murders of wildlife creatures were heartbreaking realities.

     Ironically, another well written story by Robyn Dixon of the L.A. Times reported earlier this month that more than 1,200 rhinos were slaughtered last year in South Africa.   Remember Ruby the Rhino cartoon? So sad.

     Anyway, let’s focus on Dumbo, a story I labored on a number of months ago. Imagine that today he was a full-grown mountain bull with massive ivory tusks roaming the jungles of Africa’s plush Botswana or the tundra in Northern Kenya. He’s the same precious little rascal with the big heart we all remember as kids. He’s just grown up.

     Animal assassins armed with automatic weapons, poison-tipped spears, bow and arrows and even crossbows are killing beautiful animals throughout the world today. Not only are these animal hunters killing for cash, but describing their brutal, inhumane homicidal acts as sport.

     I know, I know. Humanity is a violent species. Humans kill each other motivated by racial bigotry, greed, religious extremism, poverty, war, terrorism, ignorant fury or murderous vindictive acts focused at some tenant who’s not paying the rent a hanky-pankiest playing with your soul mate.

     As people overpopulating Earth, we are something to behold. God only knows why individuals must complete such missions of mayhem. Yet, some poverty-stricken African men and women

can earning as much as $2,500 a kill. They hack off Dumbo’s massive tusks and leave his rotting carcass for the vultures and other predators. Loads of ivory tusks are shipped to China and other Asian countries where they are carved into small ornamental knickknacks, jewelry, priceless chess pieces, and religious symbols earning fortunes for their remorseless marketers. Are you going to buy one?

     Since premeditated murder of innocent animals for profit is a sin, how can those who worship various Supreme Beings explain why they are making fortunes selling or buying religious artifacts made from the tusks of endangered pachyderms or horns of rhinoceroses? And why in hell would God-fearing customers purchase such religious items carved from elephant tusks? I guess you can chalk it up to a classic case of greed, ignorance, pomposity or an unsavory act of spiritual apathy.    

     By now, an adult Dumbo would have his own breed of babies and leave behind a grieving widow. Elephants do grieve just like humans. Experts on the subject report that in Africa alone, about 30,000 these magnificent mammoths are slaughtered annually.      The reason I used Dumbo as a metaphor is to make this point: How many of you know of giant tusker named Sato? Not many, I’ll wager. The renowned 6-ton pachyderm who roamed Tsavo East National Park in Kenya was killed by poachers on May 30, 2014. Some reports say he “died a painful death” caused by poison-tipped arrows or spears. Another news story reported that he died suffering eight bullet wounds fired from automatic weapons.

     Since you might not know who Sato is, I substituted Dumbo’s name. The information I gleaned from a variety of sources: CBS-TV’s Sunday Morning News, National Geographic and The Los Angeles Times, among others.

     Paula Kahumbu, a Kenya-based wildlife conservationist for Wildlife Direct, said that Sato (like Dumbo) was a celebrity in his own right; that he was highly respected not only as a “magnificent pachyderm but as major tourist attraction.”

     A National Geographic story quoted Ms. Kahumbu saying, “All the killers wanted was his tusks so somebody far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece.”

     The question to those who have never witnessed such an atrocity is: How deeply would you care if you learned that an elephant named Sato was slaughtered for his tusks? After all, Sato was only one of an estimated 100,000 elephants ruthlessly assassinated across Africa in recent years. If Sato’s mutilated carcass turned out to be an adult Dumbo, once revered by children as well as adults, wouldn’t that leave an emptiness in your soul; a painful feeling of remorse in the pit of your conscience? I hope so.

     I realize that our violent society breeds its own stalkers, killers, drive-by shooters as well as domestic and foreign terrorists like ISIS. So who is truly concerned about some big old thick-skinned pachyderm named Sato in an African reserve tens of thousands of miles from our shoreline.

     After all, there are an estimated 690,000 African elephants alive today. That’s a lot of Dumbos compared to 5 million such giants roaming free back in the 1930s and 1940s. Now their severed tusks, each with a monumental price tag, are shipped to places like China, Thailand, Korea and Vietnam.

     Foreign criminal organizations with sophisticated weaponry kill viciously, reported CBS-TV. A horrendous incident reported in a 2012, an estimated 300 elephants were gunned down inside a national park in Cameroon, a republic stretching from the Gulf of Guinea to Lake Chad in West Africa.  

     In recent years, says one report, “dozens” of rangers were killed fighting to protect wildlife from poachers in Africa. Is waging such a war against those who kill animals for profit so horrifying when humanity is hard at work killing its own kind by the millions? For God sakes, we’re even decapitating heads and burning people alive to make a political point; stoning women to death because they refuse to obey the demands of ruthless males who dominate their lives.  

     Since we’re talking about cartoon animals, let me ask one last question: If you were a poacher, how much would you charge to kill an adult Dumbo for his valuable tusks and his sturdy legs used occasionally for coffee tables, Ruby the Rhinoceros whose horns are made into dagger handles or ground into power used for medicinal purposes as well as an aphrodisiac, Peter Potamus the hippopotamus for his cute ears and big toothies, Maguilla the Gorilla using his powerful hands and feet for trophies, Tony the Tiger for use as a throw rug which includes his handsome head and sharp fangs, Simba the Lion King for his mane and mandibles, Smokey the Bear for his huge paws and claws?

     I feel so helpless trying to rewrite parts of this story. Helpless!! All I can say is: Think of these beautiful, defenseless animals. For their sake, please don’t buy ivory! And vote against the rampant growth of guns in our nation.

                        — Boots LeBaron —