Kentucky Woman Faces Backlash For Killing African Giraffe
Carla Baranauckas
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HuffPost•July 3, 2018
A Kentucky woman is facing harsh criticism on social media after photographs circulated on Twitter showing her posing with a giraffe she killed on a South African safari last year.
A tweet last month from @africlandpost showed photobig-game hunter Tess Thompson Talley exulting with the dead giraffe. “White american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe courtesy of South Africa stupidity,” the tweet said. It named Talley and added: “Please share.”
Some celebrities joined the criticism, with comedian Ricky Gervais tweeting: “What’s 16 feet tall and has a c**t on the back of its neck?” Actress Debra Messing wrote: “Tess Thompson Talley from Nippa, Kentucky is a disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer.”
Talley didn’t reply to HuffPost’s request for comment. She did say in an email to Fox News: “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.”
Gervais had a long response to that, saying in part: “I’m sick of Trophy Hunters trying to excuse their grim sport by saying they provide a service. They exploit the needs of the poor. They pay lots of money to go and shoot a magnificent animal because the authorities need the cash, and then claim they are doing a good deed. It’s not a good deed.”
Some people on social media defended Talley.
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