The international outrage sparked by an American trophy hunter’s killing of Cecil, Zimbabwe’s beloved lion, justifiably vilifies the despicable practice of slaughtering wildlife for sport – but it also exposes the human hypocrisy of focusing sympathy mainly on slain animals people had named as pets, while allowing run-of-the-mill creatures to be gunned down with impunity.

As of today, Wednesday, more than 250,000 people signed an online petition demanding “justice” for the 13-year-old black mane lion shot earlier this month by a Minnesota dentist with an ignoble hunting history.

I agree with the intent of the petition to end trophy hunting and hope Dr. Walter Palmer and his two African guides suffer harsh penalties, but why has it taken one lion’s death to highlight persistent demands that African nations stop issuing hunting permits to kill endangered animals? The answer, sadly, appears rooted in anthropomorphism – our habit of ascribing human traits to wildlife that implicitly make them more worthwhile than other beasts that roam the savannah.

George Orwell said it best more than 70 years ago in “Animal Farm”: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Generations of big game hunters have killed countless “Cecils” in Africa and elsewhere, and though their image has been tarnished since the days when the world lionized the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway, somehow armed men still manage to massacre a veritable Noah’s Ark of creatures for the sole purpose of cutting off heads, tusks, or antlers and mounting them on a wall, as if that demonstrated noble bravery rather than cruel cowardice.

Even among such a contemptible breed Palmer seems particularly loathsome, according to the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, which initially publicized Cecil’s sad demise.

The group reports that Palmer paid about $50,000 for the privilege of hunting a lion in Zimbabwe, and that he initially shot Cecil with a bow and arrow, his favorite weapon. The arrow only wounded the animal, though, which ran off and suffered for 40 hours before hunters tracked it down and shot it with a gun.

According to the Zimbabwe organization, Palmer and his guides then skinned the animal, cut off its head and tried to remove a tracking device that had been attached years earlier as part of a lion research program.

Zimbabwe authorities arrested the two guides and undoubtedly would like to get their hands on Palmer, who is now back in the United States but has closed his dentist’s office, at least temporarily, in the wake of furious protests. He issued a statement saying he had no idea his guides had lured Cecil outside a protected region within a national park.

Palmer’s profession of innocence rings hollow in light of a 2006 incident in which he shot a black bear in a restricted zone in Wisconsin and then dragged the carcass to an area where hunting was permitted. Palmer was sentenced to a year a probation and fined $3,000 after pleading guilty.

The Minnesota Board of Dentistry also reports that Palmer paid more than $127,000 to settle a sexual harassment complaint by a receptionist who alleged that he had made indecent comments to her.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare reports that African lion populations have fallen almost 60 percent over the past three decades, and as few as 32,000 of them remain in the wild.

The online petition urges Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to stop issuing hunting permits to kill endangered animals.

The African nation imposed a moratorium on trophy hunting around the park between 2005 and 2008, which helped the lion population within Hwange National Park, where Cecil lived, increase by 50 percent, according to researchers from Oxford University.

But under pressure from hunters officials reinstated trophy killings in 2009, and well-heeled tourists have lined up for permits not only in Zimbabwe but in other African nations.

Earlier this year a Texan named Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 to hunt and kill a black rhino in Namibia – which makes Palmer’s reported $50,000 fee seem like a bargain.

The claim that fees collected from such permits helps support animal conservation is specious, according to activists who say corrupt officials pocket most of the money.

Let’s hope Cecil’s death is not in vain, and that the trophy hunter, not the hunted, winds up on the endangered species list.