Kendall Jones is a lot of things: a 19-year-old Texas Tech student, an All Girl Squad cheerleader, world traveler and Marketing and Sports Therapy major.
Oh yeah, she’s also a major big game hunter who has posted dozens of pictures on Facebook with images of her trophies, which include elephants, leopards, lions, hippos and and a white Springbok. The life-long hunter proudly displays her kills on her page, smiling alongside the carcasses of the animals while wielding her high-powered rifle and crossbow.
Facebook
But not everyone is feeling the pictures, which she started posting in February. Jones, who said she’s been traveling to Africa on hunting trips with her father since she was a child, has come under fire from animal rights supporters, who’ve gathered more than 131,000 signatures from all over the world to date on a petition asking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to take down Jones’ page citing “animal cruelty” in the images.
In a recent statement, Jones’ family defended her photos, saying that the hunts in Zimbabwe and South Africa were “100% legal with proper tags and licenses awarded on a pre-approved quota by the countries officials and wildlife department.” The statement also claims that the hunts have pumped more than $160,000 into the local economies, helping impoverished communities.
Jones is reportedly set to be featured in an unnamed TV show about her adventures next year. NBC News reported that Facebook had recently taken down some of the pictures for violating their policies about promoting “poaching of endangered species… or content that includes extreme acts of animal abuse.”
Should Facebook block Kendall Jones’ big game hunting pictures?
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