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Just days ago, a lion killed a human camper in Namibia.A tragedy for family members of the deceased camper. May they find peace.
Now, the context.
Bernd Kebbel was part of a group of human campers who drove into lion territory. Kebbel got out of the tent at night for a pee. Kebbel is identified as a lion conservationist, so the risk had to be apparent. With no cover for desert cats in the sunlight, lions go hunting at night.
Reportedly, Bernd Kebbel had a namesake. People had named one of the local lions Kebbel. The lion called Kebbel became a problem for the Namibia safari set. A killing firm offered a £50,000 hunting licence to elites who might like to kill Kebbel, “but before the offer was taken up the magnificent solitary male was poisoned by the local farmers.”
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, lions are experiencing a catastrophic decline in population and habitat.
How many big cats, and free-living animals generally, have been deprived of their lives by ourselves, the human apes? The carnage is so extensive that Earth’s biodiversity is threadbare.
Last summer, Namibia oversaw the mass killing of hundreds of animals, including elephants, as part of a plan to feed people during the drought.
Passage Through the Wild
Permit me to go out on a limb here and say what I feel about dying in the teeth of a lion.Our ancestors used to do it fairly routinely. Such a death would be frightening, absolutely; yet not prolonged. Hungry lions go for the throat. Our final release would have come much more quickly in the course of nature’s trophic conversion than it comes for most of us today. Our merciless medical ethics lock us in the mortal coil for as long as possible, via modern technology—which could soon include genome editing for longevity.
As for the death of the micturient camper, an anonymous Namibian lion expert told the Daily Mail: “Thankfully it would have been quick as a human is no match for a lioness that is in its prime.”
Thankfully, it wasn’t like the slow death Kebbel’s namesake faced.
