What I heard: The Rhino Hunter

Notes from Radiolab podcast Sept 7th episode

Like many of you, I was nothing less than disgusted by the killing of Cecil the Lion this summer. It’s not that I had an existing emotional connection to any of the players before, but it reinforced my feelings about hunting as an outdated practice, unnecessary at best, and often cruel. (This story is still making headlines, including yesterday’s update that Zimbabwe is not prosecuting Walter Palmer.)

It reminded me of the scandal of King Juan Carlos of Spain’s elephant hunting trip. The story first broke out as a story of the elderly King Juan Carlos of Spain needing hip surgery after a fall abroad, but quickly turned into tabloid gold as it became apparent that the accident took place during a shoo-shooed luxury hunting excursion to Botswana. Cue the photos of the smiling king proudly standing in front of a dead elephant in Africa— while, back home, Spaniards are suffering one of the worst recessions its history.

This was my cultural baggage before listening to The Rhino Hunter. I had originally skipped this in my podcast feed — the incentive to listen to yet another story about hunting after the extensive coverage of Cecil this summer was especially low. Particularly if the topic evoked negative feelings.

And still, I was still curious about that world and why Radiolab had decided to pursue this. So I hit play.

After a necessary reference to Cecil and Palmer, the podcast begins with fascinating sounds from inside a hunting convention in the US. The recordings describe a world that lived up to every stereotype I had pictured of potential hunting enthusiasts: the big bucks, the arms displays, the testosterone all around. As someone who works deep in messaging and PR every day, it was particularly interesting to hear the rationalizations for hunting, including that the main obstacle for conserving natural habitats were not hunters, but people like me, who opposed it. Yes, we were the enemy, since hunting promotes conservation.

Wait.

Killing and conservation? Hunting and animal compassion?

And so, in Radiolab fashion, I allowed myself to go down the rabbit hole of how hunting supports conservation efforts. Our guides are producer Simon Adler and the Texan millionaire Corey Knowlton, who “almost by accident” paid $350,000 for the right to kill a black rhino.

Little by little, I was pulled in to the heart of the story, with sounds of boots and rifles and whispers of hunters in the middle of the thick African bush. This rabbit hole twists and turns a couple of times before the end of the episode,which again, in Radiolab fashion, is not marked by the arrival at the Truth, but the exploration multiple dimensions that, despite the contradictions, manage to exist.

The Rhino Hunter is one of those episodes in which you enter a story with that you assume is clear and straightforward, and you leave dizzy after all the turns in your moral compass. And it’s not because your aim to “do no evil” has been diminished, but because you leave the safe zone of your established views. It dares to be complex

Another example of great storytelling — one that is not just entertaining during arch of the story, but that ensures that, when you arrive at the conclusion, you take away many other questions to explore.