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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLatest hunting controversy
A 12-year-old girl who likes to hunt big game with her father sparked an online firestorm after posting photos of herself online posing with a giraffe and a zebra that she killed with the help of her dad.
Aryanna Gourdin and her father Eli took the trip from Utah to South Africa last week. Gourdin told ABC News she posted the photo on Facebook of her posing next to the dead zebra with a bow and arrow and the caption, "One of my dream hunts for sure," to share the experience.
"It's something I cherish and enjoy and I want other people to see what I experienced," she said in an interview with "Good Morning America."
The trip was one of many the pair have taken over the past five years, but her Facebook postings quickly made her a topic of heated discussion. One photo received over 73,000 comments, with some users are calling her "sick" and an "animal hater." Supporters posted encouraging messages, including "Let the haters hate! Hunt away Aryanna."
I would be happy to see trophy hunting banned; but death threats against a 12 year old...?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)uppityperson
(115,681 posts)blueseas
(11,575 posts)I can never understand seeing an animal playing, napping eating, running. NO looks better dead????? What an upside down world.
zonkers
(5,865 posts)Orrex
(63,260 posts)Calculating
(2,957 posts)Anybody killing things just for kicks has some latent mental problems.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Wootters makes the argument that hunting trophy deer is often the best way to manage deer herds as the older, big-antlered bucks have already spread their DNA far and wide, and are nearing the end.of their breeding ability. (At this point, the buck is only consuming large amounts of forbes and is likely to kick the bucket in the winter; ironically, his antlers start to thin, become gnarly, and shrink.) If hunters went for trophies, they would pass up younger bucks, giving them a chance to breed and in turn become trophies. Programs like Quality Deer Management, with the imposition of a minimum antler size, have already improved deer herds where implemented: Better age distribution, better sex balance, less disease, improved habitat quality... and bigger "horns" on more bucks.
For some reason trophy hunting has become synonymous with not eating the meat, which is not the case with domestic big game hunting. From what I have seen most animals killed on safari hunts are used, often by local villages. In fact, these holding hunting concessions distribute much of the money and bounty locally without having fees all going to the central governments and who knows where.
Ask yourself which deer should be taken? A young buck with a nice small rack, or a bigger older buck with a large rack? The answer is obvious.