Game over

There used to be a television commercial for Chiffon margarine in which actress Dena Dietrich portrayed Mother Nature. Mother Nature tasted the inedible spread made from cottonseed oil and was fooled into thinking it was real butter, and she was mad at being duped, storming off with, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

I mean, cottonseed oil margarine? Your toast should taste like a shirt?

So let nature alone, and especially don't mess with creatures who can end your life with one stomp.  Good advice that should have been taken by Theunis Botha, who was 51 when he shot an elephant at a Zimbabwe game reserve. As a result, he will not see 52. 

Big game hunter Botha was leading a pack of hunters when they came upon a breeding group of elephants and shot at them.

One of the elephants took exception to this action and crushed Botha, who leaves behind a wife and five children. 

He "perfected" (his website's words) "leopard and lion hunting safaris with hounds in Africa." He also pioneered European-style "Monteira hunts" in South Africa. 

In a "Monteira hunt," hunters send in packs of hounds to chase prey toward the hunters as they lie in wait.  That certainly makes for a fair fight.

Botha was one of those people who came to this country to get bigshots eager to get all testosterone-y to go to South Africa and kill animals because it makes them feel masculine.

In America, animal rights activists have shut down the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus because of their demands that elephants be excluded from the show. Without the ponderous pachyderms thundering around arenas nationwide, ticket sales went down and the Big Top went to the bottom.

So I hope that PETA and their counterparts will now turn their attention to Americans who fly to other continents to shot these wonderful beasts.