ANTI-HUNTERS GO NUTS: Hysteria Ensues as Huntress Posts Pic of Her Lion Hunt
TV presenter Melissa Bachman raised ire when she posted a photo of a mature male lion she allegedly shot and killed on Twitter and Facebook.
Within hours of the post, an online petition by Cape Town resident Elan Burman asking the South African government to ban Bachman from ever returning to the country was launched.
The picture depicts Bachman crouching over the carcass of a male lion with its eyes closed, paws either side of its head, as she holds her gun and smiles toothily.Â
‘An incredible say hunting in South Africa!’ she tweeted. ‘Stalked inside 60 yards on the this beautiful male lion… what a hunt!’
The post provoked a furious response from many Twitter users, who called her ‘disgusting’ and ‘vile.’
At the time of writing, Burman’s petition had 5,435 signatures.
‘She is an absolute contradiction to the culture of conservation this country prides itself on,’ wrote Burman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0-tOZ6T1FI
Maroi Conservancy is getting a lot of hate mail from all around the world regarding the Melissa Bachman lion hunt. If I can clarify a couple of facts:
Maroi Conservancy is based in the Limpopo Province, 30 km from Musina, right next to the Limpopo Border. We are operating on 8500 hectares. All the game on the conservancy is free roaming and occur here naturally.
Our motto is “conservation through sustainable hunting”.
We do ethical hunting and all meat from animals hunted is distrubuted to the local community. Funds generated from hunting goes towards fixing the border fence that was washed away in the 2013 floods; combating poaching which is excessive in this area due to close proximaty to ZImbabwe and running a sustainable conservancy. We have lost 2 eland, 4 giraffes and numerous other animals in the past 2 months that were killed by spears and dogs. We control our game numbers to prevent starvation of animals.
We have hunters from all over the world and all game hunting is done ethically on Maroi as per guidelines from Nature Conservation.
We had Melissa Bachman hunting plains game at Maroi in the past month. She was assisted by our PH Julious Heyneke. On her wish list was a lion. There are no lions on Maroi as they do not occur here naturallly. We contacted a outfitter in the North West Province and we faciltated the hunt for Melissa. We paid over the monies for the hunt to them and Melissa was tranported to Zeerust. We did not benefit financially by this hunt.
All documentation were in place for this hunt eg permits etc as required by Nature Conservation. The lion was not drugged or enclosed in a camp. It was free roaming on more than 2000 hectares. Melissa is a professional hunter and in no way is she involved in dubious practices.
We are not apologising for facilitating the hunt. As for all the negative commentary towards us, please consider how much you have contributed to conservation in the past 5 years. If you are not a game farmer and struggling with dying starving animals, poaching and no fences in place to protect your animals and crop, please refrain from making negative degoratory comments. It is so easy to judge if you are staying in cities and towns, buying your meat at ‘woolies’ and going to game reserves maybe once a year.
It is a fact, that due to the hunting industry and money generated out of this industry, there are more animals in South Africa than 100 years ago.
Any journalists are welcome to contact us to clarify facts.
