Rebecca Francis: Giraffe Hunter Now After Endangered Caribou, Organizes All-Woman Hunt
Remember Rebecca Francis, the female hunter who posed smiling next to a giraffe, she has just killed with a bow and arrow. Well, she’s back and this time she’s taking a whole group of women on an expedition into the Canadian wilderness to kill endangered caribou.
After British comedian and animal rights advocate Ricky Gervais posted a picture of Francis on Twitter lying on the ground and grinning for the camera next to her “trophy” dead giraffe, the self-proclaimed “extreme hunter” received an outpouring of online abuse, including supposed “death threats” that seemed mainly to come from people fantasizing about putting the hunter in the same position as the helpless wild animals she stalks and slays.
Francis responded first by defending her killing of the giraffe, claiming that the animal was already “close to death” anyway.
She also charged that Gervais’s attack on her was motivated by sexism.
“Ricky Gervais has used his power and influence to specifically target women in the hunting industry and has sparked thousands of people to call for my death, the death of my family and many other women who hunt,” she wrote in a statement for a hunting website. “I will never apologize for being a woman who hunts as I know that my passion for hunting and conservation is making a direct difference on the ground for wildlife.”
She also claimed that the animal’s meat was donated to local people in a nearby African village for food.
Gervais, unsurprisingly, was not impressed with her response.
We need to stamp out this terrible sexism in the noble sport of trophy hunting. The men & women that do it are EQUALLY vile & worthless.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 18, 2015
But now, according to a report in British newspaper The Express, Rebecca Francis is doubling down with an all-female caribou hunt — at a price of about $6,000 per huntress.
Though the hunt will take place in Canada, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service lists Woodland Caribou as “endangered.”
According to the Defenders of Wildlife fact sheet, of the seven subspecies of caribou, two have already become extinct.
For their $6,000, each woman on the hunt gets the privilege of killing two caribou and having the meat, fur and antlers of the slain animals shipped to Montreal. The hunt also offers “professional trophy preparation of capes” — “capes” being caribou skins.
But if you’re a woman who’s excited by the chance to go kill endangered caribou with Rebecca Francis, you’re out of luck. Spots on the hunting trip have already sold out, even though the expedition is not scheduled until September.
[Image: Facebook]
