'What Lion?,' Zimbabweans Don't Give A Damn About Cecil Story

For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the aftereffects of 1 billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a “First World problem.”

“Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country,” said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. “What is so special about this one?”

As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a potential meal, or a threat to people and property that needs to be controlled or killed.

[...]“Why are the Americans more concerned than us?” said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father of two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. “We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange.”