Activists slam Go Daddy CEO for Elephant hunt

Activists slam Go Daddy CEO for Elephant hunt
by John Yantis

Some animal-rights activists are criticizing Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons for shooting and killing elephants in Zimbabwe during a recent vacation.

Last week on his video blog at Video.ME Parsons posted "Hunting Problem Elephant, My 2011 Vacation." It shows him and others waiting to shoot elephants that trample sorghum fields and destroy crops in Lobola.

"For the second year in a row, I spent 10 days hunting problem elephant in Zimbabwe," a caption reads. "Of everything I do this is the most rewarding."

The video drew complaints online, with many animal-rights activists and angry Go Daddy customers saying they would take their domain-hosting business elsewhere. Parsons fired back at critics Monday on his blog.

A Sunday post on change.org by Laura Goldman, an animal advocate who lives in Los Angeles, called the video "a gruesome, 4-minute elephant snuff film."

Change.org is a ite where members can start online campaigns and petitions on various causes, including the environment, immigration, gay rights, education, and human and animal rights.

"While Parsons fancies himself a hero, the fact is there are many more humane, gun-free ways to keep elephants away from crops," Goldman wrote.

Conservationists and farmers have been working together to create harmless elephant-shooing devices, such as chile-infused string fences, beehives on poles, and people standing guard to bang bamboo sticks, ring cowbells and shine spotlights on the elephants when they approach the crops at night, Goldman said.

The African elephant is listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

But elephants in Zimbabwe and a few other countries are offered less protection and can be traded within limits. Those nations have shown they were able to manage their elephant populations and claimed the increasing number of the animals is causing agricultural losses, decreased revenue from hunting and increased conflicts between elephants and local residents, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

"Elephants face enough threats, such as habitat loss, poaching and drought, to be ambushed and killed by hunters," said Grace Gabriel, IFAW Asia regional director. "There are better ways to alleviate human-elephant conflicts without inflicting harm to elephants."

In the video shot March 8, Parsons says he and his team were flagged down "by a desperate farmer worried about losing everything."

Parsons shows trampled vegetation in a sorghum field and says the elephants have been in the field for three consecutive nights.

"We're hoping they come back for a fourth," Parsons says. "If they do, we're going to be here to greet them."

The video shows a sunset and nightfall as the team moves into position.

When elephants in the field are heard, lights are turned on. Parsons shoots first. He fires again. One bull is killed and the remaining elephants stampede out of the field.

Snapshots are taken showing Parsons standing next to the dead animal. The following day the elephant is butchered by hundreds of villagers, many donning orange Go Daddy.com baseball caps. In the video, AC/DC's "Hells Bells" plays in the background.

"Bulls do not return to fields. Crops are saved. Team leaves to find another farmer in need of help," the end title reads.

Change.org member Goldman is asking people to sign a petition letter to Parsons explaining alternatives. The title of the petition is "Tell Go Daddy's CEO: Real Men Don't Kill Elephants." It had more than 700 signatures late Monday afternoon.

On his blog Monday, Parsons, who also hunts leopards in Africa, took on an e-mailer who watched the video and said he would no longer spend money with the company.

"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," Parsons wrote, adding tribal authorities request he and others patrol the fields before and during harvest.

Parsons said the team tries to avoid killing elephant cows.

"By just killing bulls it has no effect on the elephant social structure (as it is matriarchal) as well as the herd size," he wrote. "The reason is another bull quickly steps up and breeds in place of the bull taken."

He called the alternatives listed by Goldman in her posting "ridiculous."

"I wonder how many of those people from change.org will be on their way to Zimbabwe with bee hives and chili pepper covered string during the next harvest. My guess is none."


Source: azcentral.com

Hunting Problem Elephant - My 2011 Vacation by drbobparsons

Each year I go to Zimbabwe and hunt problem elephant. It's one of the most beneficial and rewarding things I do. This video shows a typical day of this year's trip. I just returned home today March 14, 2011.

Here is the link to the video: http://www.video.me/ViewVideo.aspx?vid=380843

I am glad I am a customer of Go-Daddy! I will feel better everytime I send them money!

I love Go-Daddy, hope he gets more customers!

Keep up the good work Dr. Bob!
You Go Daddy !:thumb:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThomasBeaham

Keep up the good work Dr. Bob!
You Go Daddy !:thumb:

---

+1

A two pages ad by Animal Artistry in the March/April edition of SCI magazine shows Bob's trophy house in AZ. Very impressive, he's hooked on Africa.

Perhaps Goldman will pay for all the local folks to stand guard with that chile string and she can demonstrate at an in-service how to properly use it.
I await the video!

Bob Parsons is awesome. Check out www.bobparsons.me.

You should read some of the replies to that sight. What hypocrites.
Not kill a living thing, but its ok to buy meat raped in plastic??
Endangered. Ye right.
100% lack of knowledge on the subject.

Keep it up! I am supprised that no one was hurt in the butchering of the elephant. Those people live day to day and are lucky to have food every day.

Don't know Bob Parsons from a bar of soap but it's great seeing someone with an obviously high profile standing tall and proudly advocating he is a hunter !

Also good to see a hunter of obvious means doing some of the dirty work by ridding the feilds of some raiders.

Wonder if these were non-trophy management Ele or p.a.c !
:cool: :smoking:

The headline article in today's edition of "The Daily", an online paper owned by News Corp (a Rupert Murdoch effort aimed at iPad users), is all about Parson's hunt. It wasn't very flattering; the headline it self read "Barbar's Butcher". It's a pity, I expected much more balance out of Murdoch but it appears very little effort was made to be balanced.

GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons under fire for killing elephant on video; critics cry 'snuff film' (VIDEO)
by Philip Caulfield, Daily News Staff Writer

http://www.africahunting.com/attachm...nt_hunt_1.jpeg
GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons poses with an elephant he shot during a recent trip to Zimbabwe. A video of the hunt has outraged some activists and customers.

The head of web hosting giant GoDaddy.com has come under fire for posting a gruesome video of a recent hunting trip to Africa that animal-rights groups call an "elephant snuff film."

In the video, the company's founder, Bob Parsons, and a team of hunters gun down an elephant in Zimbabwe that they claim destroyed a poor farmer's crops.

The team can be seen standing in a flattened sorghum field, which Parsons says elephants had been trampling for the past three nights.

"Unless elephants are stopped, entire crops may be lost," a message in the video says.

The film then cuts to night with the hunters spotting two elephant bulls and Parson fatally shooting one.

He then poses atop the dead pachyderm, resting the butt of his gun on the animal's bloodied head.

In a scene the the next morning, local villagers wearing orange GoDaddy hats butcher the carcass and pass out meat as the AC/DC song "Hells Bells" plays over the footage.

Parsons linked to the video on Twitter on March 14, saying, "Just back from hunting problem elephant in Zimbabwe. Here's my vacation video. Enjoy."

http://www.africahunting.com/attachm...nt_hunt_2.jpeg
Parsons fires, killing an elephant in a villager's field. The CEO said the hunting team was trying to stop the animals from destroying farmers' crops and use the meat to feed starving farmers. (Video.me)

A message at the beginning of the video warns of graphic violence.

Activists, animal lovers and some customers said they were furious, calling the video an "elephant snuff film."

PETA called Parsons "heinous" and labeled him the "scummiest CEO of the year," while activists created a petition on Change.org to tell Parsons that "Real Men Don't Kill Elephants."

Parsons said his detractors were missing the point.

"I think everyone's heart is in the right place, but they are missing that things are different over there," he said. "If they had an animal destroying their livelihood and they were going to starve to death ... they'd look at it differently. And that's the situation in Zimbabwe."

The ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran called his critics "a small but vocal minority" and said he wasn't worried about losing customers.

"I helped the farmer protect his field, and I fed a lot of people," Parsons said.

But several commenters on the video's website planned to boycott the company.

"Ugh, disgusting," one wrote. "Switching domains to namecheap… Boom, headshot! Looks like you shot yourself in the foot with this one Parsons."

GoDaddy competitor NameCheap.com also tried to capitalize on the outrage by offering a special deal to customers who transfer their domains to their service.

The company promised to donate $1 to the organization Save the Elephants for every transfer.

http://www.africahunting.com/attachm...nt_hunt_3.jpeg
Villagers swarm the dead animal's carcass, cutting off hunks of meat and passing them around. (Video.me)

The public has a very hard time understanding elephant hunts. I know people that find it disgusting. And I had to have long talks with my wife, to get her to understand the problems elephants can cause....and how they need to be managed.

There are a lot of pigheaded people in this world and they will never understand hunting...it's a failure of understanding nature.

Thank you Jerome!
I do not know how to 'cut'n paste' out of an iPad or I would have posted more.

Mark

Thank you for sharing this information Mark.

If those save the elephants idiots really want to save the species rather than just a particular elephant, they will take their heads out of their butts and realize that any animal that brings a minimum of $50,000 and several thousand pounds of meat to the local economy when legally hunted will be allowed to thrive. Take away its value and bye bye elephants. I'm not sure why these people don't understand the basic economic principles involved.

I know I'm preaching to the choir on this one. The good news is that we hunters are on the economic right side of this issue. The guy who shows up with his rifle and a $50K bank transfer is going to have a lot more pull with the African authorities than someone who shows up with a Dutch Army surplus backpack, a copy of Das Kapital, and some chile impregnated twine. So the best thing we can do to protect elephants is to hunt them, and the best thing we can do to protect hunting is to hunt them!

Bert, Well said. Agree completely.

:clap: Bert

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bert the Turtle

If those save the elephants idiots really want to save the species rather than just a particular elephant, they will take their heads out of their butts and realize that any animal that brings a minimum of $50,000 and several thousand pounds of meat to the local economy when legally hunted will be allowed to thrive. Take away its value and bye bye elephants. I'm not sure why these people don't understand the basic economic principles involved. I know I'm preaching to the choir on this one. The good news is that we hunters are on the economic right side of this issue. The guy who shows up with his rifle and a $50K bank transfer is going to have a lot more pull with the African authorities than someone who shows up with a Dutch Army surplus backpack, a copy of Das Kapital, and some chile impregnated twine. So the best thing we can do to protect elephants is to hunt them, and the best thing we can do to protect hunting is to hunt them!

---

Bert, You are correct. But I will address the highlighted line in your statement.

Put yourself in a position of a non hunter for a moment. Not an anti hunter, just a simple everyday non hunter. Someone who has never been on this or any other hunting forum. They have never read a hunting magazine, never watched a hunting show, never hung around at deer camp, they don't know that SCI even exists, never mind any other hunting group. They have never been to Africa, Never owned a gun or a bow.

Just living a regular life, working, bringing the kids to school & sports, going to church and working hard for a living. Paying taxes, etc. Not bad people, just good regular people simply never exposed to our sport.

Can you imagine that person for a minute... Ok

Now what has this person been exposed to there whole life in bits and pieces without even asking. Disney, a liberal school system, that says guns are bad and children that kill animals have a problem. Kids that draw pictures of a weapon can be expelled from school. Jokes about hunters being drunk on many TV shows and comedy's. African animals are always portrayed as being on the verge of extinction. Giraffes are cute gentle animals. From good morning America until late night guests bring animals that they "protect" to show as cute and cuddly. Movies have animals that talk with a human voice and reason with there brains like a human.

Protests on the streets about fur and killing. Mass mailings on a daily basis about protecting the forests, the animals, animal rights, photos of a house cat caught in a trap, etc etc.

The reason they think the way that they do is because they have never been exposed to what we really know. The reason is they truly know nothing about elephants only what they see from shows like the crocodile man, or his daughter. They know nothing else about animals other than what they have been exposed to thru the media in there apartments or there suburb homes and schools.

They have not chose a side against us, it just is truly the only side that they know. For example I believe the people that run PETA and groups like it are the devil and do not actually care about animals, its a money making business. But most people that send them money actually do care, they just do not know any better or even realize that they are hurting animals by supporting these groups. They are not necessarily ignorant, just simply uneducated to the truth.