Angry Tweets Won T Help African Lions Summary

In the article “Angry Tweets Won’t Help African Lions” first published on 7/1/2016 in The New York Times Richard Conniff attempts to use the recent death of Zimbabwe’s Cecil the lion as a medium for informing readers of the New York Times about what is going on in Africa and the impact these events are having on the lions. Cecil the lion was a mascot of sorts for Zimbabwe until he was hunted down and killed by Walter Palmer in the name of “Trophy Hunting”. The real driving force behind this seems to not necessarily be Trophy hunting, but in fact is the dwindling number of lions in Africa today. As pointed out by Conniff, one overwhelming problem that is affecting the lion's population is the killing of them and their food supply by impoverished

Conniff continues to talk about the dwindling number of African lions by noting that they are coming rather close to being actually extinct in areas such as West and Central Africa in which there are only 400 remaining and on a larger scale only 20,000 on the whole continent. While 20,000 could seem like a lot to some people it is worth noting that according to Conniff the population is “down from 200,000 in the mid-20th century, and populations are likely to drop by half, except in southern Africa, over the next two

However, Conniff notes the only way this will ever happen is if people take action and are able to put aside the basic human urge to consume everything right now, while not leaving much for later. Conniff describes a national park in Zambia known as Kafue which brings in around $2.3 million from tourism, however, lose much wildlife to snaring. He then goes on to note that recent projections, however, claim that “the park could be making $39 million a year instead, along with jobs and benefits for its neighbors — and support four times as many lions.” Conniff attempts to make his audience feel worried about the lions by giving us all these facts pertaining to Africa and its lions in which he hopes will help solidify his attempt at getting his readers to lobby and advocate for organizations such as the UN to help with the upkeep of these national parks. Conniff maintains a strong ethos in multiple points within his argument for instance, when he talks about campaign's purpose was to unite all of us under one banner in a way connects him to his audience as he groups himself with them. Conniff also does a fairly decent job at using logos to help persuade the audience, such as on one occasion in which