Maybe it's the same as shooting moose in the Canadian wilderness, but man I don't know what it is, there's just something very unsettling about killing a lion. To me it's like the difference between killing and eating a chicken vs. killing and eating a cat.
I think the reason why we don't eat carnivores is evolutionary as well as cultural based on religious ideas. From an evolutionary perspective, carnivores are inherently dangerous, so it would be silly to try to kill them if they're designed to do the same to you. Also once humans shifted from a hunter gatherer species to an agrarian one, it was probably quickly discovered that raising carnivores for meat is an inefficient way of farming. For example you need to raise antelope for your lion farm if you want to be eating lions. So why not just eat the antelope instead? There's also the issue of feeding your lion 1000 pounds of meat every 2 months to produce an 800 pound lion, so the numbers just don't add up.
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