Photos of US female hunter posing with rare black giraffe ‘trophy kill’ spark outrage
Images posted by a US hunter of her “dream kill” –an 18-year-old rare black giraffe she shot down in South Africa– have sparked outrage online and have prompted the hunter to defend her actions.
The photos, actually taken in June 2017, had resurfaced online after they were shared by a local South African website, AfricLand Post, a couple of weeks ago.
White american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe coutrsey of South Africa stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share pic.twitter.com/hSK93DOOaz
— AfricaDigest (@africlandpost) June 16, 2018
Tess Thompson Talley from Nippa, Kentucky is a disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer. With joy in her black heart and a beaming smile she lies next to the dead carcass of… https://t.co/gG9CWX4oXl
— Debra Messing (@DebraMessing) June 27, 2018
Thanks in part to some celebrity power from actors Ricky Gervais and Debra Messing, the tweet about the “white American savage” has now been shared over 37,000 times and caught the attention of thousands of angry animal lovers.
"Giraffes are now on the 'red list' of endangerment due to a 40% decline over the last 25 years." Gervais tweeted. "They could become extinct. Gone forever. And still, we allow spoilt c***s to pay money to shoot them with a bow and arrow for fun."
READ MORE: ‘They just left his head’: Lions maul ‘poacher’ to death in South Africa game reserve
Kentucky-based Tess Thompson Talley is the proud blond hunter pictured in the photos. In her original Facebook post Talley boasted about securing her “once in a lifetime dream hunt”.
“Prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today!” she wrote. “Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite awhile. I knew it was the one. He was over 18 years old, 4,000 lbs and was blessed to be able to get 2,000 lbs of meat from him."
A lot of people took to Twitter to voice their disgust with Talley’s joy at the killing of the giraffe.
There are no words for this disgusting excuse for a human being. #TessThompsonTalleyhttps://t.co/iDS4m0eoT3
— julie graham (@realjuliegraham) June 27, 2018
To be you Tess Thompson Talley must be like living without a soul .. your savagery & lack of intellect will go down in history Shame on you & anyone else with this revolting appetite for death - you are the minority & laws will come in to prosecute you https://t.co/hy3I3UTuoS
— CLAIRE COOPER (@CLAIREECOOPER) June 28, 2018
Like many big game hunters, Talley defended the kill by saying it was part of conservation efforts to protect other species of wildlife in South Africa. She argued that because the giraffe was 18, it was too old to breed and claimed it had killed three younger fertile bulls.
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“The giraffe I hunted was the South African sub-species of giraffe. The numbers of this sub-species is actually increasing due, in part, to hunters and conservation efforts paid for in large part by big game hunting. The breed is not rare in any way other than it was very old. Giraffes get darker with age,” said Talley, in an email to Fox News.
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