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This article largely misses the point: the fact that the average resident of Zimbabwe doesn't care about hunting lions doesn't mean we should hunt lions. If a lion is attacking villagers, then yes, absolutely it should be dealt with. That wasn't the case with Cecil.
We can talk all day about trophy hunting, or killing nuisance animals, and we may disagree with each other at the end - that's fine, but those topics are totally irrelevant to this discussion.
This discussion is about a man who lured an animal out of a protected area to try to justify killing it, and then tried to destroy the GPS collar the animal was wearing in order to hide his tracks. That type of behavior is known as poaching, and a person's opinions on the morality of poaching don't matter. The behavior is illegal. If you think a law is wrong, that doesn't exempt you from the consequences of breaking it.
I think You are completely missing his point. The average American doesn't know a damn thing about what a lion is. We see them through TV, in pictures, on the internet, and maybe some that are milling around waiting to be fed on safari that are half tamed by people.
Also, you might want to take a look into what current conservation actually entails and why many conservationists might just say, "fuck it" when it comes to Cecil the lion.
For anyone with 2 minutes, this guy always gets a point across ASAP.
As I mentioned in my post, this isn't really a discussion about wildlife conservation. I do agree that we should be having more conversations about that topic, and that our current efforts are misguided at best. In fact, I agree with basically everything in the video that you linked. However, that's largely irrelevant to this issue.
Cecil's killing was a clear cut example of poaching. Poaching is illegal. Therefore, everyone involved in the hunt should face the appropriate punishment. I know that there are extremely loud voices (on both sides of this issue) that are trying to make it into something it's not. No, Walter Palmer should not be hung, or have his teeth removed, or be fed to the lions. Likewise, I realize that his killing Cecil isn't an international travesty. He didn't kill the last lion in the world, by any means. Nor am I against the killing of lions (as I mentioned in my post).
What I am against is poaching - a behavior that Walter Palmer has a history of. The fact that he and his guides lured the animal away, then attempted to destroy the GPS tracker indicates (to me at least) that Palmer and his guides knew what they were doing was against the law.
Is that why we hunt so many of them to extinction?