New Video of American Gunning Down African Elephant Prompts PETA Call to UPS: ‘Stop Shipping Body Parts!’
Trophy Hunting Footage Reveals L.A. Man Repeatedly Shooting and Failing to Kill Curious Young Elephant, Whose Body Parts Were Preserved for Shipment to the U.S.
For Immediate Release:
August 4, 2020
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Following the release of damning new video footage of a Los Angeles–area man gunning down a young elephant in South Africa, PETA is calling on the United Parcel Service (UPS) to stop transporting wildlife trophies, as more than 40 airlines have done since 2015.
The video footage shows the elephant strolling out of the bush on land connected to Kruger National Park, where no hunting is allowed, and Aaron Raby shooting him in the head. The elephant falls to his knees and continues to suffer as Raby—who paid $30,000 for the pleasure of killing him—gets multiple instructions from his guides on aiming better and then, without any sense of urgency, shoots four more times, causing the young animal to rumble in distress. It’s not known how many more shots, if any, were taken or how long the elephant suffered before he died—so PETA has filed a request for an investigation of alleged hunting permit violations. Raby later paid nearly $20,000 to have the elephant’s body parts preserved for shipment to the U.S.
“Bloodthirsty pleasure killers are flying to Africa to gun down animals and line the pockets of safari companies, hunting ranchers, and farms that specifically breed animals to be shot,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is calling on UPS to stop enabling this gruesome industry by transporting animals’ heads, feet, and other body parts.”
PETA notes that UPS has already banned the transport of shark fins, certain live animals, and ivory—but it is still enabling the trophy hunting industry.
Raw video footage for publication is available. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist worldview that animals are nothing more than trophies or commodities. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
