Rebecca Francis received death threats (Picture: Rebecca Francis)

A female hunter has become the target of death threats after posing with a freshly-killed giraffe.

Utah woman Rebecca Francis, who won the U.S. reality television series Extreme Huntress, has killed brown bears, moose, zebras and antelopes and drawn the ire of social media users in the past for the pictures she posts of herself beaming next to her kills on Facebook.

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The mother-of-eight hunts even while pregnant (Picture: Rebecca Francis)

But the abuse escalated after Francis took a picture of herself lying down next to a freshly-killed giraffe, with the image tweeted by comedian and animal rights supporter Ricky Gervais.




‘I know this is very hypocritical of me but I want to f****** shoot her just for this picture,’ writes @AsapGinger1.

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Just been reading about Rebecca Francis "extreme huntress" & I feel completely sick. How can anybody do that with a smile? — Hayley (@HMcLaughlin92) April 13, 2015

‘May that horrible woman die a lonely, painful death,’ adds @DirtyHippyDalek.

Gervais’s post was retweeted over 17,000 times.

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What must've happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling? pic.twitter.com/DyYw1T5ck2 — Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 13, 2015

Mother-of-eight Francis, who has co-hosted the television show Eye of the Hunter, says on her website that she hunts every year, ‘even through pregnancy, and nursing babies.’

She also lists the animals she has ‘taken with a bow’: ‘A 10 1/2 ft. brown bear, black bear, shiras moose, alaskan moose, dall sheep, stone sheep, desert bighorn ram, rocky mountain bighorn ram, mule deer, whitetail deer, elk, mountain goat, antelope, arapawa ram, kudu, zebra, black wildebeest, giraffe, springbuck, blesbuck, lynx, badger, and squirrel.’

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