I've made my views on fox hunting clear before now and some of the themes cross over. It’s a subject that’s irked me for some time but some Twitter posts from comedian Ricky Gervais this week pushed it back into my consciousness and prompted me to write this.
Let me start by saying that, yes, I do understand the difference between illegal poaching and licenced hunting. It doesn’t mean that I agree with either and the “it’s legal, get over it” argument holds little sway over me. It’s also legal for you to down a bottle of vodka in thirty seconds, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Sure, hunting as a form of population control is vastly more commendable than tracking down one of those few remaining rhinos in order to desecrate its corpse in the pursuit of money borne off the back of a ridiculous notion that rhino horn will cure cancer and enable time travel. Just this week a story broke that the one remaining male northern white rhino in the world is now under 24-hour armed guard, from fear of poachers. I’m left incredulous.
Once again, I realise that this situation hasn’t been effected by hunters, but by poachers. However, at least they take a certain amount of responsibility for their actions and are very clear in their motives. I’d genuinely have (a tiny bit) more respect for some of these hunters if they just said “it gave me a massive rush to kill a dangerous animal which 95% of the population will never even see”, rather than the painfully transparent “I did it as an act of conservation”.
Take Rebecca Francis, who was pictured gleefully lying next to a slain giraffe. Apparently the animal was “inevitably going to die soon” after being expelled from its herd. Who made you the grim reaper? I’m fairly certain society would have issues with me applying the same principal if a widowed pensioner stepped out in front of my car…
Anyway, the picture was apparently to “honour” her prey. Yeah, I’m sure the animal felt extremely honoured as the round tore through its rib cage and heart; “thanks for choosing me!” Maybe it’s the way that she posed with the dead body like a trophy whilst sporting a huge grin that it should be grateful for?
She was then pictured with a dead lion and bear. No word yet on how they’ve been honoured by a self-important and overly privileged American with a sexism complex and too much time of her hands.
Francis is not alone though and, admittedly, probably gains more attention because she is female. It matters little to me as her actions would be equally deplorable from a man, but another woman produced in the same vein is Kendall Jones. She’s a young cheerleader from Texas with a penchant for murdering exotic and rare animals for no reason too.
These women (and many more hunters I suspect) have been subjected to all manner of threats and abuse. It’s more than a little paradoxical to decry the lack of humanity in killing animals by wishing death upon the perpetrators. I’ve previously written about the irony of the public issuing death threats to people involved in releasing music advocating murder. It’s largely pointless, but one can’t help but imagine a situation where the hunter and prey meet in more natural circumstances.
On a lighter note, I had to laugh at the story (from 2011) of a hunter that tried to finish off a fox with the butt of his rifle only to have the fox hit the trigger and shoot the man in the leg. Karma’s a bitch. Now I await the story of a rare predator which stalks one of these hunters and turns the tables.
