I'm not lion.

[Brian37]

Help me out, how do we know that wasn't the case? And if we do know why would it matter? Given the gimcrackery in that movie a fake lion fur wouldn't have been noticed. A well done fake lion fur costume would have been less likely to give the actor heat stroke.

We DON’T know it wasn’t the case. I’m simply pointing out that using an actual lion pelt for a costume isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If the producers of the film had said, ‘We need a lion skin for a costume, let’s kill a lion’, I would object. If (as seems more likely, if only from a cost standpoint) they purchased a pelt or had one taking up space in the props department, what’s the harm?

Boru

Still missing the point. 

Back then, big game hunting and the sale of pelt for clothing was normal.

It doesn't matter how the lion died back then.  

I still love the movie, always will. But if the movie were made today, natural death or by hunting, that wouldn't happen today.