Animal activist Ricky Gervais has a bone to pick with trophy hunters. And he isn’t afraid to share it via his social media channels. He in fact got into a Twitter war with an “extreme huntress” Rebecca Francis, who posted a picture of herself lying next to a giraffe that she killed, all while smiling. Gross! Anyway, Ricky wasn’t having it and he tweeted,”What must’ve happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling?” You can view the exchange here.
Ricky Gervais’ Twitter post states: This Tofu & Rice was old and sad and wanted me to kill it. Now I will eat it.
If you aren’t familiar with this “sport,” trophy hunting is legal in South Africa where animals such as lions, tigers, rhinos and elephants are all bred and placed in enclosed parks to be killed by hunters paying top dollar to do so. These animals have been raised, and often times bottle-fed, by humans so they are very trusting of people in general. So these animals aren’t expecting to be slaughtered when they are approached by people. Doesn’t seem like much of a challenge or sport, huh? And the majority of these trophy hunters come from the US, China and Europe.
Also, hunters like to argue that trophy hunting helps the wildlife population. But those in animal conservation disagree. Dominic Dyer from Born Free stated to the BBC, “Studies have shown that trophy hunting can often hurt the overall population of a species, the money generated does not help local communities or conservation efforts and it can also lead to an increase in illegal wildlife poaching. The wild lion population in Africa has fallen from around 80,000 in 1980 to less than 25,000 today as a direct result of hunting, habitat loss and conflict with humans.”
So where do you stand on this issue?
