Twelve-Year-Old Girl From Utah Causes International Uproar Over Hunting Images

We have previously discussed trophy hunters who kill and pose with dead animals.  We recently followed the controversy over the shooting of “Cecil the Lion” by an American dentist Walter Palmer from Minnesota. There were other trophy hunting stories that enraged people around the world. (here and here and here) Then there was Josh Bowman who has been denounced around the world for his video from Alberta, Canada as he celebrated the slow killing of a bear with a spear.  Now a 12-year-old named Aryanna Gourdin from Utah has posted a series of highly controversial pictures with dead animals and expressed her love for killing animals.  One picture shows her holding a giraffe’s heart.

Once again, I have never understood why it is such an accomplishment to kill such a harmless animal like a giraffe or zebra or to revel in the death of a beautiful animal like those displayed in these photos.

Notably, Mark Martineau and Jason Hansen, who run hunting expeditions and organized Aryanna and her father’s trip to Africa, love the pictures of the carnage and the desire to kill as many animals as possible.  They have Josh and Sarah Bowmar to join in killing lions despite the international outcry over the hunts.

I have many friends who are hunters and they would be equally appalled by these displays. Indeed, some of the loudest critics of the Bowmars came from hunters.  These twisted images have particularly shocked the world due to the involvement of a young girl who relishes killed animals like giraffes and then posing with their dead bodies and organs.

In my years of backpacking and hiking, I have never had a desire to kill the magnificent animals that I have seen in the wild to some how possess them.  I certainly could not imagine rejoicing like Bowmar in slicing open a bear and allowing it to die a painful death (possibly over the course of hours). I also do not consider hunting with a spear to be particularly brave when your hunting party is behind you with high powered rifles.  Shooting a zebra like the one in some of these pictures is like sneaking up on a horse and blowing it away.  I fail to see the sport in that.  While Gourdin professes a “love” for the animals, she rejoices in their dead bodies.