Changing your argument on me? ;)
So, there's many pieces that go into the "Cecil" situation. From the fact that first lions, and more, most large animals in Africa have been engrained in the US psyche as endangered. For that matter, most resources outside of the US have been preached as being sacred and should be protected no matter what. You could ask yourself why our media tells us the rainforest is in more need of protection than the Southeast rain forest of the US which we've decimated for our homes and societies. Maybe a way to keep competitors from developing their resources and thus, affecting our economic superiority?
But to stay on this topic, yes lions appear to be "vulnerable", I was wrong in thinking they were endangered, but the the question you posed when I referenced "endangered" was around the subjectiveness of our choosing. My counter was there are actual scientific metrics we can look at to determine when an animal actually need protection.
Though lions are not yet endangered, but vulnerable, does not mean their population is not declining. It is. And if it continues they will be below that self preservation threshold and thus, a killed lion is counter to what they need to self preservation.
However, yes, our reaction as a society is often times projected based on our biases typically formed from our media consumption. A better example would be sharks. Look at how we feel about sharks. They are essentially on the same level of predator as lions, yet we cry when a lion is killed and celebrate when a shark is killed.
So my original point, "Cecil" was a bad example as there's scientific evidence that lions need some type of protection and thus, are in need of the human compassion more than other animals.
Yeah, since we already covered some ground on Facebook, I thought I'd approach it from a different angle. :)
It's not just that, though. I've seen stuff that suggests empathy plays a big role and we are more connected to species that look like us and less so to those that don't (regardless of their level of consciousness). Like the raven's I mentioned above. Lions do need attention, but it was only "Cecil", named, loved, community lion which caused so much outrage. Endangered species die every day without that much attention.
I think you have to also look at the human's ability for compassion. We only have so much energy that can be spent per day on compassion for things outside of our tribe is costly.
I think a good question is instead of having humans sporadically exert this energy each time something breaks through their firewalls, rightly setup to prevent over taxation of their systems, how do create a constant dialogue using small fragments of that same energy?
If you look at the BP oil spill(s) response, I think you see the same level of empathy for all kinds of animals, that do not closely resemble human, as you did with Cecil. Pictures of birds covered in oil, frogs and other far from human species.
These moments of compassion are short lived though as life continues to pull people's attentions away from the tragedy at hand to the next tragedy in the list. You can apply this to political movements as well. Human's compact and short attention spans create bubbles of movements. It takes long visions and stamina to really make change.