I have little enough in common with big-game trophy hunters that I wouldn’t use the word “we” to group us together.
I have no problem with the vast majority of hunters in the US who follow state rules and regulations about when, what, and how they kill. Outside of that, I’ve got no argument people baiting and poaching to feed their families (I would have a problem with a guide baiting deer), and I’ll fully support your humanely killing a wounded animal after sunset. You guys all get the benefit of the doubt from me.
Trophy hunters don’t, because trophy hunting is stupid and wasteful. We’ve figured out some ways to make it less wasteful by donating the animals, and to make it less stupid by using the proceeds from trophy kills towards (at least an attempt at) sustainably managing wildlife resources. But the fact that an animal is big and impressive is, to me, insufficient reason to kill it. She killed the giraffe in the least bad way she could have, I guess, but that’s not enough for me to give her the benefit of the doubt.
It didn’t have to. Gervais knows what the Twitterati are like when they get their collective dander up. Know how I know? Because it happened TO him. Google “Ricky Gervais Mong Faces”.
Bottom line: Gervais found himself in a shitstorm of his own making and spent weeks under a barrage of furious tweets before buckling and apologising, probably just to get everyone to shut the fuck up.
He knew full well when he tweeted that photo there was a good chance Ms. Francis would get similar treatment or worse. It was an easily foreseeable consequence of what he chose to do.
No. I’m making this about Gervais because (a) he’s a hypocrite and (b) he started this whole shame-a-thon. That’s all. And, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve got nothing but hate for all the internet bullies doxxing and threatening Ms. Francis
Excellent OP with which I concur wholeheartedly. Gervais has long been a sanctimonious prick, the sort of person of course for whom Twitter might have been designed, where sanctimonious prick can call to sanctimonious prick like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps (thank you, PG Wodehouse).
No, I’m saying that blaming Gervais is ridiculous. He didn’t cause the doxxing any more than the hunter did by posting the picture in the first place. The blame is on the people acting badly, not the people playing the publicity and advocacy game.
If Gervais had posted any personal information, or put cross hairs on the photo, or said *anything * that could be seen as provoking dangerous action then I’d be all with you. But I don’t see that here. She put the picture out there for her own benefit and she is fair game for criticism via Twitter. Unless there are extenuating circumstances I don’t believe it’s fair to squelch legitimate criticism because some anonymous idiots act like idiots.
I’m down with hunting. BTDT, I’ve dismantled deer. but I do it for the meat. I dislike “trophy hunting” and “canned” hunts. I’m kind of on Gervais’s side here. If I’m to kill an animal, it’s for a better reason than “because I could.”
Is “because I think meat is tasty” really all that much better than “because I think hunting is exciting”? Neither hunting for meat nor hunting for trophies is necessary; both are things that modern middle-class humans do for pleasure.
Seriously, while I eat meat, I’m not sanguine about it. I’m not at all convinced it’s an ethical thing that I do, eating meat; and I’m fairly convinced it’s no more ethical than trophy hunting.
The rest of the brief story is well worth reading for some real “holy cow why would she think this was a good idea” moments from further posts on her facebook wall.
ETA: There is a (completely non gory non graphic) depiction of a dead cat in the article.
BTW this is apparently immediately breaking news, so I’m still open to the possibility that it was a fake photo prank gone horribly awry. (Why’s there no blood in the picture? But then, maybe there wouldn’t really be that much, or any at all, I have no idea because I’ve never seen a cat get shot in the head with an arrow before.)
Just mentioning that in case there’s been a whoosh of some kind.
It’s okay, because she fed the local natives with the meat, and Bricker says that she was probably the only one who could get permitted in that jurisdiction.
