Tess Talley: Hunter who killed rare giraffe says she has "no regrets"

It was two years ago that American Tess Talley evoked the ire and fury of the internet when she posed proudly for pictures with a rare black giraffe she’d slain.

The backlash was widespread and fierce against the hunter, though Talley never issued an apology for her actions, nor accepted that she’d done anything wrong.

While that in itself is distasteful for anyone who realizes that all animals have a right to live, two years have passed, and perhaps Talley has been allowed adequate time for reflection and a change of heart? …

… Not so. The hunter recently appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss her thoughts on killing animals for sport. She described it as a ‘hobby’, as well as ‘something I love to do’.

https://twitter.com/DaanJordens/status/1008722932665905154?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1008722932665905154&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.stories.newsner.com%2Fanimals%2Ftrophy-hunter-poses-with-dead-giraffe%2F

We know, one might think that Talley had learned her lesson given the amount of people who protested the fact she had travelled to Africa to kill a creature as majestic as a giraffe. Alas, she remains blinded by the illusion that it’s her right to kill animals, defending her actions by claiming they were done in the interests of “conservation”.

During her appearance on CBS This Morning, Talley was presented with the photo that proved so divisive two years ago – the one that sees her posing with a giraffe’s corpse. When pressed to explain herself, she said: “I see it as a hobby, I see it as something that I love to do. It’s conservation, and this hunt in particular is a conservation hunt.

“We are preserving the wildlife. So what we do is, we are managing herds. We are managing numbers of wildlife.

“We’re hunters, and we’re proud to be hunters. I am proud to hunt and I am proud of that giraffe.”

Viewers were quick to spot and condemn, however, the fact that Talley appeared to have a wide grin on her face as she debated the issue. Some were vocal in their doubt that she genuinely considers what she does to simply be aiding conservation efforts, whilst others went so far as to brand her “disgusting”, and “clearly a privileged, wealthy, selfish human.”

White american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe coutrsey of South Africa stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share pic.twitter.com/hSK93DOOaz

— AfricaDigest (@africlandpost) June 16, 2018

Later in the interview, Talley was asked to give her thoughts on any feelings of ‘remorse’ she might experience when in the process of hunting the animals she shoots.

To that, she said: “Everybody thinks that the easiest part is pulling the trigger, and it’s not. That’s the hardest part.

“But you gain so much respect, and so much appreciation for the animal because you know what the animal is going through. They are put here for us. You know, we harvest them, we eat them.

“I would rather do something I love to do rather than just give a lump sum of cash somewhere and not know particularly where that is going.”