Using Pigs' Feet To Protest A Lion's Death Is A Bit Hypocritical

Someone has vandalized the Florida vacation home of Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer, spray-painting the words “lion killer” on the garage door and scattering animal crackers and pickled pigs' feet on the lawn and driveway, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Wait. Pickled pigs’ feet?

Police haven’t caught whoever struck Palmer’s $1.1 million home on Florida’s Marco Island. But the graffiti strongly suggests that the vandal is angry because Palmer, a big-game trophy hunter, killed Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe last month.

If that's the case, using the feet of other dead animals in protest seems like a somewhat hypocritical choice.

The death of Cecil -- a beloved member of a threatened species killed by a wealthy man for sport -- is different in many ways from the suffering of pigs raised for food. And it's not especially helpful or productive to pit these causes against each another in the outrage Olympics.

But both issues, at the most basic level, are about the unnecessary misery and death visited upon animals thanks to the actions of human beings. Pigs might not be a threatened species, but they are highly intelligent and emotionally complex. And just as with Cecil -- whose skinned and decapitated body was simply left to rot -- the pigs' feet strewn on Palmer’s lawn didn’t provide nutrition for anybody.

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