What is the human obsession with killing?
It seems the news, whether it’s on television, in the newspaper or on the Internet, is filled with stories about killing. On a recent local newscast, the first five stories reported on killings. And if people aren’t killing each other in ridiculous road rage disputes, over some perceived slight, or over racial or religious issues, they’re killing other animals for fun.
I have spent a lot of time in Africa on safari, watching elephants and other magnificent wild animals. I have seen a zebra nursing her young. I have watched a giraffe drinking peacefully -- and awkwardly -- from a pool of water. I watched a gorgeous male lion babysitting his cubs as their mother slept a short distance away. I've seen two lion brothers fighting over the rights to a beautiful lioness. I have watched a mother grizzly bear roll onto her back to nurse her two cubs. I have seen a mother elephant use her trunk to help her tiny calf up a slippery river bank.
And I have seen far too many photos of grinning imbeciles proudly posing with the carcasses of the magnificent animals they have killed for pleasure. Sure, some claim they are 'saving' endangered animals by shooting them. Nobody can really explain how killing endangered animals saves the species. But the reality is, these people enjoy on some perverse level the killing of animals who posed no threat to them.
Andlet's not forget those who kill for fun, to see who can kill the biggest or most coyotes over a weekend to win bragging rights and a case of cheap beer. Fortunately, such contests are increasingly being banned.
I know that some people hunt for food. The moose someone kills in Maine will provide a winter's worth of food for the family. But most people don't eat giraffes or elephants or leopards or bears. No, they want the rights to brag about their kill, to pose with a stupid grin on their faces with the carcass of the animal they just murdered, and perhaps to put the animal's skin on their floor or hang the head on the wall.
Well, I have an elephant head on the wall of my office, too -- a nice elephant head carved of wood. My daughter, knowing how much I care about elephants, bought it for me. I can admire it and know that no intelligent animal had its 60-plus year life cut short so I could hang its head on the wall. I also have a photo of a gorgeous leopard looking directly at me, as well as a photograph of two elephants, their trunks entwined. I took those photos, and the animals were able to go on with their lives. And I am proud of having taken such great shots with my camera.
Some scientists believe that humans -- and some other mammalian species -- are genetically predisposed to kill. Millions of years of evolution may have dimmed that urge, but in some humans at least, the instinct appears to thrive. Just look at America's gun violence/mass murder epidemic. Look at the humans who get a thrill from killing animals, the bigger the better for no reason other than that they can.
Maybe this genetic predisposition to kill is stronger in some people than in others. Maybe there is something wrong with their brains. Maybe they really are mentally ill, as some have claimed. How do we explain the fact that a white, upper class professional found nothing wrong with luring a gorgeous male lion out of the protected preserve where it lived so he could shoot it and hang the head on the wall of his 'man cave'?
I'm not a scientist or a psychologist. I can't begin to explain why humans seem to either enjoy killing, or at the very least have no problems with killing others. I just wish this drive to kill weren't so pervasive in our supposedly advanced world.
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