Hunting as part of a cull is one thing, but hunting an endangered species purely for "sport" is pretty despicable.
If this guy wanted to kill things, than why not go to Iraq and join Kurdish forces in their fight against ISIS rebels?
I don't think the lion is endangered, and certainly not endangered as far as the African parks are concerned. IIRC from my time there, there were only 3 "royals": black rhino, cheetah (I forget the third..old age). I know that the trophy tax on a male lion was enormous, maybe $50k in '96. The parks put all of that money back into anti-poaching.
Look, I am not a big fan of trophy hunting either. But the "majesty" of African animals is great in slo-mo videos, but your perspective changes a lot when you are there. The parks are sometimes overrun with certain species (like the fucking elephant) and they can be nasty fuckers. Plus, the public is carefully shielded from cull hunts, where the parks send out the wardens to machine gun "excess" animals.
I lol at most progressive American pussies. Fucking crying about "Cecil" and then going to the store, where you buy meat fucking killed in a factory after the animal lived in a tiny box.
Live a month or two in the bush or go to war and a lot of your perspective changes.