Dear Melissa,

I have to hand it to you.

That pic of you sitting gloating triumphantly behind the huge male lion you killed has gone viral.

I’m not saying that people aren’t admiring your big strong teeth or even your big strong breast implants.

But your timing was all kinds of special. A week after we hear that the western black rhino is officially extinct, you post this picture of yourself on all your social media sites. Now you are front page news in many countries. Even the comedian Ricky Gervais has weighed in. He thinks you are a great hunt. Typo.

When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. What then do we call a person who shoots a wild animal?

Not for food, or even for their pelt. Just for pleasure.

Help me on this. I want to understand what frisson of pleasure do you get when you see a creature toppling to its knees? Which do you prefer? A crocodile? Or a giant bear? Which turns you on more? Heaven knows you have killed enough species to be an expert.

Do you have any feelings at all? Apart from vanity, that is.

I see from all your pictures, you wouldn’t dream of going on a hunt without heavily mascara-ed eyelashes, a piece of statement jewellery, your glossy hair, neatly braided…

Perhaps that adds to the revulsion people feel when looking at you with your ‘trophies.’ Because you see, sweetie, equality of the sexes, like Communism, is great on paper. In reality it is something else. Biologically a woman is the giver of life.

When she takes life it is an aberration. When she takes life for fun it is perverse.

Your utter disregard for animals and nature is breath-taking.

I read that you desired to kill an adult male lion as it is the most sought-after trophy by wealthy foreign hunters.

The Maroi ‘Conservancy’ gang – Hannes, Laurens and Julious (sic), did your bidding and imported a lion to the area so that you could kill it. I know that you know that this is called canned hunting.

Trophy hunting is an obscenity beyond the obvious one. Trophy hunting for lion is killing healthy members of an imperiled species.

Do you know or even care that when an adult male lion is killed, the destabilization of that lion’s pride can lead to more lion deaths as outside males compete to take over the pride? Read National Geographic and learn a few things. I know I did.

Once a new male is in the dominant position, he will often kill the cubs sired by the pride’s previous leader, resulting in the loss of an entire lion generation within the pride.

Trophy hunting by definition is counter-evolutionary. It is based on selectively taking the large, robust, and healthy males from a population for a hunter’s trophy room.

These are the same crucial individuals that in a natural system would live long, full lives, protecting their mates and cubs and contributing their genes to future generations.

See why everyone thinks you are bloodless, callous and recidivist?

Your grinning happily behind a dead lion has shocked people in a country that is almost unshockable.

In South Africa rape and murder are commonplace. Let’s be more explicit. Baby rapes are prevalent. But it took your narcissistic exploits to energize a country that is compassion-fatigued.

Amid the sad and irritating news which leaves the populace numbed by your career of legalized poaching – murdering – animals touched raw nerve ends. Hunting for sport is bloody and antiquated.

In a mere four days the Stop Melissa Bachman Facebook page has had over 95,000 hits.

You awakened a vast tribe of anti-hunters who are intent on urging the international animal protection community to muster support for the plight of animals and the environment.

For that I thank you.

The website of the Maroi Conservancy – your enablers – has crashed.

When the site was up there was some feeble defense along the lines of ‘providing employment to the locals’ and ‘conservation’.

Since when does killing an almost endangered species count as ‘conservation?’ You’ve been drinking too many Klipdrifs and coke with the manne.

The money that does come into Africa from hunting pales in comparison to the billions and billions generated from tourists who come just to watch wildlife.

According to National Geographic, despite the claims that trophy hunting brings millions of dollars in revenue to local people in otherwise poor communities, there is no proof of this.

Even pro-hunting organizations like the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation have reported that only 3 percent of revenue from trophy hunting ever makes it to the communities affected by hunting.

National Geographic published a story in which Jeff Flocken, the North American director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare wrote; The United States government is considering whether to add lions to the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act. Such protection would ban the importation of dead trophy lions into the U.S.

A recent study led by a scientist from Duke University showed that as few as 32,000 lions are left. Approximately 600 lions are killed every year on trophy hunts – 80% are killed by Americans.

A few years ago I read about a South African woman who was attacked by a male ostrich. She engaged it in a fight to the death with her bare hands and managed to strangle it. An ostrich has a kick stronger than a mule and their toe-nails are sharper than a serpent’s tooth. She was knocked to the ground several times and suffered a couple of broken ribs and a punctured lung. Perhaps the whole of the human race would have celebrated your “victory” if you had been attacked by the male lion and managed to kill it with your bare hands.

I don’t know if you have ever heard of a bloke called Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t think his name comes up a great deal in the bomas you hang out in after a good day of killing. He once said “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Given this premise I am afraid you and your animal killing chums are egregious, recidivist and morally bankrupt.

Yours etc. Jani

P.S. Isn’t it deeply ironic that “Melissa” means honey and sweet?

ends

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Read Jani Allan’s column on rhino poaching here