Argh...I swore I wouldn't touch this one with a 10 foot pole but I just can't resist. First off, again, we don't know, as Paul Harvey says, the REST of the story. What I did find out is that about 70 humans a year are killed by lions in Tanzania alone, and between 200 and 400 humans a year are killed by various wildlife encounters (hippos, elephants, lions, snakes, etc...), which seems shocking to us as Westerners of course. However, when you consider the rapid population growth in Africa, the living conditions, etc...it's easy to see how the 3rd world can have these problems.
I would imagine that in colonial America many people lost their lives to mountain lions, black/brown bears, various snakes, and other dangerous animals that lived in as close a proximity as lions in Africa to people in Africa. Here in the Garden State, someone may go into anaphylactic shock after getting stung by a bee, or may be killed by a deer coming through the windsheild at 50 mph, or rarer yet, bitten by a copperhead/mauled by a black bear, but we have no parity with the level of human/animal encounters in Africa.
Getting back to the lions, if anyone is familiar with the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness," (good flick by the way) you're familiar with an (albeit dramatized) account of the actual "Tsavo Man Eaters," which terrorized a camp of railroad workers working on the Uganda Railway in 1898. Over the course of about two months, two lions had killed about 140 workers, mostly dragging them from their tents at night as they slept. After the lions were killed by Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, they were examined and found to have been abnormally heavy (and therefore slower than an average lion) and had poor gums and teeth. Of course, they turned to the easiest prey to catch-men. The fastest man on earth runs about 13 mph slower than a spooked zebra or gazelle, not to mention that these animals tend to travel in packs.
So here's my take. Lions aren't killing because they are overpopulated. SOME lions kill humans because they are either fat, lazy, old, their dental hygiene isn't up to snuff, or some combination thereof. Therefore, I don't believe that pure sport hunting of lions is necessary or prudent, whether the entire animal is utilized or not. I also have some doubts about this as well. Carnivorous animals aren't generally very tasty because of the simple fact that they eat animal protein and not vegetable matter. If cattle were fed pure ground meat instead of a mixture of grains and other matter, beef would taste much different. Also, if you look at hunting in Africa historically, humans didn't start hunting lions (along with other big game) until the arrival of colonialism, and frankly, high powered firearms. Natives were quite content to hunt less dangerous (and better tasting) zebras, gazelles, impalas, wildebeests, etc... In short, you cannot compare hunting lions to hunting whitetailed deer. Deer will overpopulate themselves to the point of starvation in a matter of a few years, destroy crops, and cause general havoc if their numbers are not managed whether you agree with the methods utilized or not.
Finally, I believe that in light of the fact that 70 people a year are killed in Tanzania alone by lions, that lions identified as "man-eaters" should be tracked and permits should be issued to hunters in order to eliminate them. It's the least that can be done in a place where AIDS, starvation, and other diseases kill hundreds of thousands every year. The least that can be done is to ensure that fewer people will be killed by old sickly lions. So once again I present my opinion, not as an anti-hunter, nor as an overzealous Ted Nugent type, but as (hopefully) a voice of reason.