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Giraffe Hunter Is Unrepentant About Her Kill After Social Media Backlash

Giraffe Hunter Is Unrepentant About Her Kill After Social Media Backlash

Tessa Talley, who made world news last week after posing with a giraffe that she had killed, has hit back at criticism of big game hunting.

Mike Wood

Mike Wood

Few things will win you the ire of the Internet quicker than posing with the body of an animal that you've killed, as Tess Thompson Talley found out last week.

She posed next to a giraffe that she had killed, in a photograph that went around the world and outraged animal lovers everywhere.

One would think that a brush with the angrier reaches of the Internet, with all the social media backlash that comes with it, would make even the most thick-skinned of people reconsider their actions, but Talley is clinging to her resolve that she has done nothing wrong.

She has now broken her silence since the news of her killing of the bull black giraffe made her name infamous around the globe.

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"It is something I believe in," she told the Daily Mail. "This is more than a hobby for me, it's a passion.

"If you post something you believe in, whether it's hunting, religion or politics, there is someone there to hate on you.

"And I'm a woman so they are going to make it worse. Men don't get the grief."

Talley was in South Africa - one of the remaining nations on the continent to allow big game hunting - when she killed the giraffe.

She claims to have donated over two US tons of giraffe meat to a local orphanage after her kill.

PA

"Other people benefited," she told the Mail. "The safari company, the village, the locals, the economy, they all benefited.

"This giraffe had killed three younger ones that would have bred. As I was hunting him I was walking over their bones.

"The herd is flourishing now that he is gone.

"He was 18. He was going out. If you have a dog and it gets old or ill, you take it and you have it put down. This was the same."

The news of the kill went around the world, prompting angry tweets from celebrities such as Ricky Gervais, Debra Messing and more, but Talley was unflustered.

"As far as the celebrities, they're using it for their fame," she said. "The others don't mean anything - they're anti-hunters. They're activists and that's what they do. I don't really think they have a point."

She vowed to continue posting similar images after future kills.

"That's what all hunters do," she explained. "We all pose with our trophies. It's like going on vacation to a monument and posing in front of it. That way, you have the memory."

Featured Image Credit: Facebook

Topics: Viral, World News, south africa, Animals