IT was not a term usually spoken at that time of the day, in that place, or by someone of that age, and it cannot be reproduced here, this being a family newspaper and all that. But the curse came straight from the heart, and it was directed at photographs of a grinning American dentist proudly showing off his latest kill, a lion by the name of Cecil.

Had Walter James Palmer of Minnesota chosen that moment to appear in person, our visitor to the newsagent would have treated him to root canal surgery without the anaesthetic; which would be mild compared to what others have in mind for the individual dubbed the most hated man in America. Several days on, outrage about the killing of the 13-year-old lion continues to grow. Even in the age of the internet storm, where Twitter breezes over such trivialities as the colour of a dress can soon turn into tornadoes, the tempest is extraordinary. The dentist has fled his home and practice following death threats. There are calls for the laws on importing hunting trophies to be changed, for hunting to be outlawed in general. On a smaller, more personal scale, millions will simply have looked at that photo and felt the world was just a little bit more rotten than it had been a day before.

Is this the usual madness of crowds at work? Is Cecil the lion today’s equivalent of the veal calves whose export brought middle Britain to rioting point in the 1990s? And on a planet where human suffering is never hard to find, what does it say about our priorities that we care so much about animals?

The latter question is perhaps easiest to answer, at least in part. It is not only possible but desirable for people to care about more than one matter at a time, and being concerned about animals does not mean one has be heedless towards humans. Indeed, the feelings ought to go hand in hand. One recognised sign of a psychopathic personality disorder, after all, is cruelty towards animals from a young age. Or as a character in a movie called The Wackness put it, “Never trust anyone who doesn’t listen to Bob Dylan, never trust anyone who doesn’t like the beach, and never, ever, ever, trust anyone who says they don’t like dogs”. Sound advice.

Even so, there will be some who reckon that, sad as the story of Cecil undoubtedly is, a little perspective ought to be deployed. Human beings have the ability to be the most awful hypocrites when it comes to animals. Far from caring too much, it could be argued we care too little. Consider the billions of animals slaughtered every day for the plate; the global industry in animal experimentation; the butchering of animals for their body parts to use as trophies or in pseudo medicine; and the cruelty and abandonment that animal charities see every day.

Consider, too, what might have been the reaction if Cecil had been a bighorn sheep or an elk. Through books and movies and television we are conditioned from an early age to find certain animals cute and worthy of preservation, and others harmful and ripe for destruction. On that score, Walt Disney did more for animals than Noah. The fact that Cecil even had a name, given to him by the conservationists who monitored him, marks him out as a rare beast. Pets have names; the multitudes are faceless and nameless.

Though one wishes it was otherwise, Scotland is not without shame when it comes to the treatment of animals. Wha’s like us, home to millions of animal lovers but also home to the so-called Glorious Twelfth? From hotels and restaurants to gunmakers and clothing companies, there is gold in them thar moors, fields and rivers where the huntin', shootin' and fishin’ takes place. Urban Scots are not left out. Like the rest of the country, they have to endure the now regular pregnancy watches over the panda enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo. Though the pandas were a “gift” from the Chinese government, the Scottish Government paid more than £40,000 to market their presence. Many might argue that money would have been better spent on supporting pandas in the wild, but what matter the dignity of animals when there is merchandise, and the notion of a small country punching above its weight, to flog?

There are wider arguments advanced in favour of hunting: that it helps to conserve animal populations that would otherwise die out; that it aids developing nations in earning much needed money to improve the lives of their citizens; and that it preserves the wilderness for generations to come. But it is harder to swallow such arguments than it is for a camel to pass through the door of a bank and open a savings account. Man remains the most dangerous beast on earth and history shows us that, left to his own devices, he will destroy rather than preserve, plunder rather than cherish. Why else, in the supposedly civilised 21st century, would there be an industry devoted to giving porky, bespectacled dentists from Minnesota the chance to slaughter a lion for less than the price of an SUV? Why else would there be an industry which breeds lions and other animals just to be hunted? Hunting is about the making of money and the vanity of one species believing it has the right to exploit another, even to the point of extinction. All the rest is special pleading and marketing.

If the case of Cecil has highlighted human nature at its worst, it has also shown it at its best. The animal lived in a national park in Zimbabwe, where his existence was protected and his progress monitored. It was only by allegedly luring him beyond the park’s confines that he was shot with a crossbow, tracked for 40 hours, and finished off with a gun. A lot of money had been spent protecting him, and many tens of thousands of people will have seen him in the wild, enjoying the sun on his face. Even those who did not know of his existence until this week will now be aware of the plight of the lion and other animals in the sights of trophy hunters.

There is something else going on here, something which ought to gladden rather than sadden. One can attribute the reaction to Cecil’s death to anthropomorphism or sentimentality if one likes, but the case of this animal also touches on power, who has it and who does not in the internet age. A shameful act that would hitherto have escaped much attention became a global news story. Millions who would normally consider themselves powerless now had the chance to express their views. If the world has become a global village, the residents have given a resounding thumbs down to the killing of this animal. There are many more outrages out there, countless other tragedies and injustices to confront, and hopefully in time voices will be raised over those too. For now, the wicked killing of a king of the jungle is as good a case as any over which to start a roar.