That lion isn't sleeping and those pink arrows aren't toys, facts that caused images posted by a teenage hunter to draw criticism and outrage on Facebook.
Kendall Jones' Facebook account reportedly had images depicting the Texas Tech University student posing next to African wildlife she'd slain with rifles and crossbows. A petition to have the images from the teen's safari removed continued to accumulate signatures, even after Facebook removed the controversial content.
AVAAZ petitions user Neill drafted the petition with a goal of receiving 500,000 signatures and delivering it to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"For the sake of all animals, especially the animals in the African region, where hunters are going for fun just to kill an animal," stated the petition. "Some people have been reporting the pages lately but it seems Facebook is not concerned about what Kendall Jones is promoting in her page."
While Neill's petition was well on it's way to reaching its goal of 500,000 signatures, a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable that the images in question were removed for other reasons.
"We remove reported content that promotes poaching of endangered species, the sale of animals for organized fight or content that includes extreme acts of animal abuse," said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson said the petition's signature count had no bearing on the removal of the images and said some controversial images are left on the site to create important dialogue on the issues they raise.
"Certain content, which some may find offensive, can be used to spread awareness, and we welcome dialogue about animal abuse, hunting, and other animal-rights issues," the spokesperson said.
Jones asserts she and her family complied completely with South African law when engaging in the hunts, obtaining all of the necessary permits to do so, and she said that not all of the images in question depicted dead animals. Jones shed light on an image that showed her standing over an immobilized white rhinoceros, a protected species.
"This rhino was darted and immobilized to draw blood, DNA, micro-chipped, antibiotic shots and treated for a leg injury," stated Jones. "It's not dead and it's not asleep, it's immobilized with medication. It walked away once the procedure was done."
While Jones asserts that she didn't kill the white rhinoceros in her picture, some notable rhinoceros conservationists say that reducing the number of territorial males in a rhino herd can help the species thrive. In a 2010 interview with the BBC's wildlife magazine, Discover Wildlife, Cathy Dean, the director of Save the Rhino International, spoke in defense of trophy hunters.
"Some people do find it disgusting that we support regulated trophy hunting of rhinos," said Dean. "But while animal-rights people want to save every animal, we want to save the species. We are confident in our position and will defend it over and over again."
