Lion Meat For Sale In Illinois, Lawmakers Want It Banned

So what’s on the secret menu these days, you ask? Animal-style fries? Ten patty burgers? A special mix of tea?

Nah. Lion.

A restaurant in Phoenix screwed up big time when it offered lion burgers in 2010 to “honor the World Cup in South Africa.” Needless to say, South Africa was pissed and shocked because it doesn’t even eat lion meat. The meat was tracked back to a small restaurant supplier in Chicago called Czimer’s Game & Seafood, which got in trouble a decade or so when it was found selling tiger and leopard meat.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, know that buying and selling lion meat isn’t illegal in the US. Leopard and tiger meat trading is a different story, but because lions aren’t exactly endangered, their meat is up for grabs.

That being said, a lawmaker by the name of Luis Arroyo is fighting against the legalization of lion meat sales in Illinois as of a few weeks ago. His argument is that lions are zoo animals, and that we don’t exactly have a shortage of other meats to eat.

Yeah, well, horses are riding animals, and you don’t see anyone picketing dog food companies just yet.

Anyway, the bill he’s trying to pass is supposed to establish a fine as much as $2,500 for buying or selling lion meat, accompanied by a year in jail. But it may all be in vain, especially since the US Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to protect African lions under the Endangered Species Act. Not because they’re endangered, per se, but to stop the trade of “trophy lions” and their skins. Of course, it’s super illegal to eat any animal on the endangered animal list, so it would make selling and buying lion meat illegal as well.

But people are kinda pissed about this bill, not because they disagree with selling delicious lion, but because there’s a lot of crap happening in Illinois right now. Like, I don’t know, the $96.7 billion in unfunded liabilities, problems in public pension, that kind of thing. Being an animal activist, I, too, wonder if lion meat is all that important there right now when they can’t even pay their retirees…which means that they can’t eat the lion meat anyway. Unless lion meat is the fountain of youth or something.

Let’s look at this from the outside for a moment. You know how when I said “lion meat for sale,” you automatically cringed a little? What if I had said zebra meat? “Oh, yeah, that sounds exotic,” you would say. “But lion meat…” Well, guess what. It’s just as exotic, but you know the big difference? Lions are predators. It doesn’t cross our minds very often to eat predators. We eat harmless creatures that make us feel macho when we eat them, like cows and pigs. Notice we don’t really eat mountain lion or eagle, but we do love us some pathetic little chickens and deer.

People just don’t naturally want to scarf down predators, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with being a predator ourselves, so it’s like eating our brother or something. Just like Kristina Rasmussen, vice president of the Illinois Policy Institute said, “Most people wouldn’t even conceive of eating lion meat. Surely this problem can be solved by civil action and community consensus and open debate.”

I honestly agree. While I don’t care that it’s legal to sell lion meat, I’m certainly not going to go buy any of it. It’s creepy. I think lion, I think big pretty cat. I wouldn’t eat my house cat in any situation other than the zombie apocalypse and I think that’s how I feel about lion, too.