It starts when we’re very young. The first books we read — the soft ones that babies like to chew, and then the ones with cardboard pages that toddlers pore over — are filled with lions, elephants, and giraffes. We meet Africa’s big mammals in the guise of friends — colorful, anthropomorphized, and grinning.

As we get older, we see them on nature programs, now handsome, majestic, and endangered. Our hearts go out to them. How could anyone want to murder such noble beasts? When, two years ago, a Zimbabwean lion was shot with a crossbow by Walter Palmer of Minnesota, that hapless dentist briefly became the most hated man on the planet. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wanted him hanged.