Social media truly comes into its own in cases like that of the Minneapolis dentist, Walter Palmer, who reportedly thought that the $50,000 he spent procuring greedy men to lure a magnificent and widely loved lion, Cecil, out of a reserve so that he could wound it with a bow and arrow – was money well spent. Palmer has already slaughtered a rhino, a bison, a cheetah and another lion.

He is clearly insatiable.

Cecil was ultimately killed 40 hours later when the injured lion was tracked and shot. Despite wearing a checking collar, as he was a part of a university study project, he was then skinned and decapitated with a view to being an ornament on the dentist’s wall, no doubt.

Cecil was a huge tourist draw in the Hwange National Park and, even worse, his demise means that the next lion in the pecking order will probably kill all Cecil’s cubs to ensure the dominance of the pride’s new bloodline. The region may also suffer financially for the loss of its star attraction.

Without the uproar generated worldwide by the news of this grubby and despicable transaction and its aftermath, we would never know that there are people out there whose bloodlust is such that they get their kicks by spending huge amounts of money in impoverished countries to indulge savagery that they masquerade as a sport.

It is one of humanity’s less admirable qualities that we are still unable to accept that the hunter instinct, necessary for our survival as a species thousands of years ago, is no longer required in a civilised society. Most of sentient nature only kills for food or survival. Man is the only species with members who think killing for fun is acceptable; who fail to have the imagination that might lead them to want to minimise the suffering of another creature, if its death is truly necessary.

When I wrote my first column for this newspaper exactly twenty years ago today, the news of this shabby and degenerate enterprise would only have been widely promulgated if the broadcast media or national newspapers had deemed it of sufficient import.

Today thanks to the power of Twitter and Facebook the perpetrators will undoubtedly ultimately bitterly regret their vile enterprise.

So despite the trolls and the inconsequential chitchat, let’s be grateful for a world in which the unacceptable is recognised more widely and more speedily.