‘I love animals, they are delicious’: Idaho huntress provokes public anger with safari photos

Amid fury over Cecil the lion’s killing, a university accountant from Idaho has chosen to defy public opinion by boasting of her South Africa safari trophies on Facebook. The huntress’ revelations have been met with an avalanche of negative comments.

Sabrina Corgatelli can be seen posing next to a giraffe, an impala, a kudu, a warthog and a wildebeest – all of them dead. Each image is accompanied by exalted descriptions with several exclamation marks, for example, the first one uploaded on July 25. “Got my beautiful beautiful Kudu!! It was my #1 want on my list and I got him on the first day!!!” she wrote.

Most of the negative reaction was caused by a photo in which Corgatelli posed with a dead giraffe's body wrapped around herself. The woman has picked it as a cover image for her Facebook page.

The collection of safari trophy photos caused a massive public outcry. ‘Ugly’, ‘disgusting’, ‘cruel’, ‘deranged’ are just a few epithets which have been used to describe the pictures she posted.

Corgatelli, however, is convinced that sharp criticism of her hunting is unreasonable. “To me it's not just killing an animal, it's the hunt,” she told TODAY on Monday.

“…Everybody just thinks we're cold-hearted killers, and it's not that. There is a connection with the animal, and just because we hunt them doesn't mean we don't have a respect for them. Giraffes are very dangerous animals. They could hurt you seriously very quickly,” she added.

She also posted two abstracts from the Old Testament to prove that hunting is justified within Christianity.

Corgatelli summarized her attitude to wildlife in a post on Facebook page: “I love animals, they are delicious”.

Her Facebook page has, meanwhile, already got almost 10,000 ‘likes’.

The issue of trophy hunting has been particularly high-profile after it was revealed that an American dentist Walter Palmer killed Cecile, a lion in Zimbabwe, who was popular among tourists. Zimbabwe has already restricted its hunting rules and requested Palmer’s extradition. More than 200,000 Americans have already signed a petition to be sent to the Obama administration asking to satisfy the Zimbabwean request. 

READ MORE: Zimbabwe asks US to extradite dentist lion killer