It's an odd story: GoDaddy CEO decides he wants to shoot an elephant, videos his hunt, and then is surprised when animal rights activists drop their GoDaddy accounts. Don't they know he is being a conservationist?
So maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for Big Bad Bob to videotape how he gets his African thrills? Maybe it was a bit much for people to take in the sight of him standing with an elephant he shot dead, grinning like a kid on Christmas?
GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parsons flies to Zimbabwe loaded for the biggest land animal on Earth. He hangs around the farming villages known to have trouble with bulls in must. They ask him to kill the troublemakers, he cranks up the video camera, and he pretends Jack the Ripper lives next door. The elephants come by and — bang! — he shoots one dead.
Awesome. Then he posts the whole heroic episode online, and, oops. Well, wouldn’t you know? People like elephants.
Bob doesn’t understand why anyone’s upset — didn’t you see all the villagers tearing the carcass to bits?“The people there have very little, many die each year from starvation and one of the problems they have is the elephants, of which there are thousands and thousands, that trash many of their fields destroying the crops. These people have literally nothing and when an elephant is killed it’s a big event for them, they are going to be able to eat some protein.”You thinking what I’m thinking? I’m thinking a smarter CEO would have thought a little about the consequences of starring in an animal bloodbath.
I can't lie, I don't even begin to understand the appeal of big game hunting. It is horrifying to contemplate, but even more so to gloat on video over. I wasn't a big fan of GoDaddy because of their sexist advertising, but this is horrible.
Unsurprisingly, GoDaddy is losing clients over this unapologetic move (Parsons says he's planning on doing more hunting soon). Clients like PETA and the Humane Society don't find shooting endangered species something worth supporting. Vegansaurus outlines how disingenuous Parsons' defense is:
Unbelievable. From my calculations, the absolute BARE BONES MINIMUM you can spend on an elephant murdering murder tour of murder in Zimbabwe is $21,000. Do you know how many f***ing hungry people you can feed with $21,000?! To give a comparison, Food fo Life Global can feed over 100 meals for $100. That’s 2,100,000 meals for the price of his elephant killing safari. (UPDATE: My numbers were wrong, they can do 100 meals for $30, so it’s actually 69,930 meals. That’s still insanely more than one dead elephant can provide.) And that’s a low estimate that doesn’t include his plane ticket, taxes, fees, whatever the f*** else these rich murdering pieces of sh** pay to murder legally.
He’s also saying that he’s helping thin the herd so that they don’t infringe on the resources of locals. OMG WHAT LOLZ. There are much more humane ways to do this, from contraception to electric fences. In fact, murdering elephants might have the exact opposite effect, as other ellies race to procreate.
If you are a GoDaddy client and want to voice your discontent, here's a slideshow on how to boycott GoDaddy.