The hunt and slaughter of a lion, lured from the safety of his reservation in Zimbabwe earlier this week, cannot fail to have moved all right-thinking, decent folk. The fact that the lion, with his distinctive black mane was a well-known tourist attraction, had a tracking collar and even had a name, Cecil, seems to have made it worse.

The hunters (if we can honour them with such a title) lured the lion from his sanctuary with an animal carcass towed by a truck and once out in the open he was “fair game”. He was shot by an arrow, staggered on wounded for 40 hours and was then put out of his misery before being skinned and his head removed as a trophy.

Aside from the fact that lions, like so many creatures on this beautiful planet of ours, have been hunted almost to extinction by mankind, the sly calculating manner of Cecil’s slaughter is the part of the story that causes the most outrage.

The two local guides who charged the American trophy hunter $50,000 for the pleasure of the kill are now facing justice in the Zimbabwe courts and it is possible that the hunter and executioner will be extradited from the US to join them.

In an ideal world the punishment would always fit the crime and in this case if these three heroes really do fancy themselves as macho men and hunters how about dropping them off in the middle of Isis held Syria (armed of course – let’s give them a fighting chance, which is more than they gave the poor lion) and see how they cope.

That would be a better test of their machismo.