Rebecca Francis: Giraffe Killer Defends ‘Ethics’ Of Hunting Exotic Animals, Posed With Black Bear
Rebecca Francis, the hunter who struck a grinning pose with a giraffe she had just killed — a picture, which ignited an online firestorm when it was tweeted by comedian Ricky Gervais — has publicly defended killing the animal, as other photos of Francis posing with slain animals were circulated online as well, drawing more angry response.
What must’ve happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling? pic.twitter.com/DyYw1T5ck2
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 13, 2015
A photo of Francis posing with a slain black bear appeared on several media sites, and her Facebook page shows the 40-something grandma posing with numerous other dead animals, mostly deer.
She claims, however, to have killed members of about two dozen different species. In the following picture, she posed with a slain ram, complete with the blood still fresh around its fatal arrow wound.
In her statement of self-defense posted on the Facebook page of a hunting site, Francis claimed that she killed the giraffe during a trip to Africa in order to provide “the locals with food and other means of survival.” But that did not stop Gervais — best known as the creator of the original, BBC version of the sitcom The Office — from continuing to ridicule the hunter.
“@AndyBee_26: she’s so proud of herself! pic.twitter.com/esnGDpnFTn” < yeah, she probably killed this one to feed the poor locals too ? — Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 15, 2015
Francis claimed that she went to Africa “of the mindset that I would never shoot a giraffe.”
But once there she was told of a giraffe who “was wandering all alone. He had been kicked out of the herd by a younger and stronger bull. He was past his breeding years and very close to death. ”
“They asked me if I would preserve this giraffe by providing all the locals with food and other means of survival. He was inevitably going to die soon and he could either be wasted or utilized by the local people.”
Francis, who called her killing of the giraffe “ethical,” did not explain how she verified the alleged loner and “close to death” status of the giraffe.
In fact, killing giraffes is not an uncommon pastime for hunters visiting Africa from the United States and other western countries, and the opportunity to kill giraffes as “trophies” is offered by various tour companies who charge fees in the hundreds, even thousands for the chance to slay a giraffe.
One such company, AfricanHuntLodge.com, charges a “trophy fee” of $3,000 for a giraffe hunt, in addition to the daily fee of $345 for a single hunter. The site says that a giraffe kill is usually part of a safari hunt lasting seven to 10 days, meaning that the total cost of killing a giraffe could run close to $6,500 — not including the costs of travel to Africa.
The pose that hunter Rebecca Francis struck with the giraffe that she killed did not seem to indicate any of the solemnity that might accompany a hunt intended strictly to provide “locals with food.”
[Image: Facebook via News.com.au]
