HUNTING BIG GAME FOR FOOD OR WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT VS. TROPHY HUNTING

A 19-year-old Texas Tech University cheerleader’s Facebook pictures showing her grinning alongside her African kills – lion, leopard, rhino, hippo, elephant, Cape buffalo, Zebra and Springbok antelope – outrages animal lovers all over the globe

Kendall Jones, 19, a Texas Tech University cheerleader, says she accompanied her father on “hunting adventures” as a child, getting her first kill, a white rhino, at the age of 13. She brags, “The first animal I ever shot was a White Rhino with a .416 Remington!!” Of her third African safari, when she was 14, she wrote, “This time I got my leopard. And also took down a hippo.”

NBC Today reports:

In her bio posted to the social network, Jones says she followed her father on "hunting adventures" as a child, and shot her first animal, a white rhino, at the age of 13 on a trip to South Africa. She has since returned to Africa several times where she has "harvested" a wide variety of animals, and now hopes to host a television show about her exploits.

Facebook pictures of her African hunts showing her grinning alongside a lion, leopard, rhino, hippo, elephant, Cape buffalo, Zebra and Springbok antelope have outraged animal lovers, including me, all over the globe.

Jones, who refers to her kills as “harvests”, defends herself as a wild life conservationist. She justified killing the elephant by saying it fed hundreds of thankful village families.

In a statement obtained by NBC Today, her parents defended the kills:

First and foremost, it’s imperative to make mention that all of Kendall's hunts in Zimbabwe and South Africa were 100% legal with proper tags and licenses awarded on a pre-approved quota by the countries officials and wildlife department.

Secondly, the tags, licenses, and fees purchased in addition to the services provided by local trackers, skinners, and assistants totalled over $160,000 USD, not including travel and/or production costs. In Zimbabwe, where over 70% of the country's population is classified as poor or extremely poor, this money, along with the $200 million hunters provide annually to the overall African economy, can provide a great deal of stimulus for the local economies. In the most rural areas, most people are unemployed and depend on bartering as a way of living and their economy welcomes hunters. We're very proud of Kendall and Cody in not only helping to conserve these species for future generations, but also for helping contribute both money and jobs to an extremely poor area of Africa.

What a crock of supreme shit! These obviously filthy rich people justify the unjustifiable by saying that the dirty money they and their spoiled daughter pay the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa helps the poor people of those countries. And it is the height of absurdity to claim that when their precious daughter kills endangered animals, she is conserving those species for future generations. As their daughter herself says, she hopes to land a TV show as the result of her kills.

There is something obscene about pictures showing a grinning young woman posing alongside the animals she bagged, some of which are among endangered species. It is obvious that she enjoys her kills, or as she puts it, her harvests. I don't think I need to be a psychiatrist to classify Kendall Jones as a sicko.

While I admit to being an animal lover, I am not against hunting if it’s done as part of wildlife management or as long as the kill – as with deer - is consumed as food. But that is not what Kendall Jones and her father do. They are simply filthy rich trophy hunters and Kendall’s Facebook pictures prove it.

Now I know that a lot of people are going to be pissed off at me, but I believe trophy hunting is immoral and cannot be justified.