Facebook deleted some but not all photos of a 19-year-old hunter from Cleburne, Texas who posted images of her smiling next to carcass of big game animals she recently killed during a safari trip in South Africa.
College sophomore Kendall Jones of Texas Tech University has earned the ire of pretty much the entire Internet after pictures of herself posing next to her trophies - African lions, leopards, rhinos and elephants she either killed or tranquilized supposedly in the name of conservation - went viral. One of the photos shows the teen hunter smiling while she carried a limp leopard in her arms. Other photos show her posing next to a dead elephant, and with her sitting on top of a lion she just killed.
Anti-hunting advocates and conservationists came together in a petition demanding Facebook to take down photos of Jones which "promote animal cruelty," to which Facebook ceded earlier this week. As of press time, more than 300,000 people have lent their signatures to the petition, which has a goal of garnering half a million signatures.
"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," says a Facebook spokesperson in a statement. "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 teen hunter's family defended their daughter's actions in a statement, saying that Jones legally obtained all hunting tags and licenses from the governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe. The family also said that Kendall and her father Cody, who first brought his daughter to his hunting trips when she turned nine years old, contribute to wildlife conservation efforts by paying cash-strapped African administrations hefty fees to hunt a small number of big game animals allowed every year.
In particular, Kendall's much publicized South African Safari cost more than $160,000 in tags, licenses, fees and payments for locals employed as assistants, trackers and skinners. The amount also does not include other travel costs, which the Jones family says will also provide a boost to the economy of Zimbabwe. They also said that the animals are provided to the local governments to feed the villages because hunters are not allowed to bring their hunt home.
"In Zimbabwe, where over 70% of the country's population is classified as poor or extremely poor, this money, along with the $200 million hunters provide annually to the overall African economy, can provide a great deal of stimulus for the local economies," says the family in its statement. "In the most rural areas, most people are unemployed and depend on bartering as a way of living and their economy welcomes hunters."
But criticism remains severe. Many people who liked Kendall's Facebook page have pointed out that the money spent for tags and licenses could have been easily spent to fund conservation efforts and feed the locals without killing for sport animals that are classified as vulnerable or near threatened. Others speculated that the Texas Tech student is not a true-blue wildlife lover but is only running after the publicity she needs for an upcoming hunting TV show to be aired in early 2015.
