Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook
GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons has posted a video of what he said is "Of everything that I do this is the most rewarding." It's an elephant hunt in Zimbabwe.
Defenders of elephant hunting will say these are "problem elephants." That label doesn't mean that the elephants are rogue, meaning killing people, but in general these issues with "problem elephants" are because, as in this case, the elephant was eating a local farmer's crops.
The fact that humans have taken away virtually all the free range of not just elephants, but other wild animals, doesn't have anything to do with it, of course.
The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) criticized the killing, and said it will move its domain name, peta.org, away from GoDaddy, closing its account with the company.
On its website, PETA said
Bob Parsons, the CEO of GoDaddy.com (a major Internet domain-hosting company), has killed at least one elephant and a leopard for his personal enjoyment. PETA is closing its account with Go Daddy and urges everyone to follow suit. [...]
Parsons is hiding behind the lame claim that killing elephants helps farmers in Africa whose crops are damaged by the animals. In fact, there are ample effective and nonlethal methods to deter elephants from crops, including using chili-infused string and beehives on poles to create low-cost "fences." Instead of coming up with flimsy excuses for killing these highly intelligent and social animals, Parsons should use his wealth to fund humane solutions to human/elephant conflicts.
The video first shows the damage elephants caused by trampling a farmer’s sorghum field. That is indeed true. Later then, Parsons and other hunters wait at night for the elephants to return; Parsons shoots and kills one of the elephants. Dozens of villagers then come to pick the elephant’s meat clean from its bones.
There are a number of comments at Parsons' blog, many positive, but many negative, as well. One says:
I will start by saying that godaddy.com is the best company in your field that I have ever worked with. You are the best.
I am faced with a decision though...There's nothing you can write here that will make it okay with me that you go to Africa and shoot elephants. I believe it is wrong on so many levels. Might should not make right.
Why not shoot them with a camera? With your success, why not start a wildlife habitat refuge to protect them? There is so much more that you could do than shoot them.
You should read the book, Babar.
Paul Winters
Phoenix, AZ
Another adds,
I have to tell you, Mr. Parsons, your attempts to excuse your behavior are lean. You are traveling around the world to give money to one of the most corrupt, violent regimes in the world but you excuse that by saying that you are helping people. Instead of shooting wild elephants with a gun (really brave of you by the way) why not do a man vs. elephant hand to hand combat kind of thing? That could bring money to the locals with the right promotion. Tell me this, if your concern is with the people of Zimbabwe, what charitable acts have you performed there?
Roanna Martin (Arizona)
Seeing an opportunity, some other domain name registrars are offering GoDaddy customers low, low rates to transfer their domain names from GoDaddy to their companies. One, NameCheap.com said:
“We at Namecheap are very disturbed by this video of a competitor killing an elephant for sport. We’ve decided to throw our support behind our Elephant friends by offering domain transfers at a price where we actually lose money.
“Show your protest by saying BYEBYEGD again and transfer your domains to Namecheap for $4.99 for the next 24 hours through 11:59pm EST on 3/31/11 (limit 10 per user, valid for all com/net/org domains).”
On top of that, we’ll donate $1 for each transfer to SaveTheElephants.org
Meanwhile, DomainIt.com is offering a 50 percent discount on all 1 and 2 year hosting plans; it adds that $10 of every plan will be donated to the World WildLife Fund (use coupon code “DomainitCares” to get the deal).
You can watch the video in the sidebar, but be warned. Full disclosure: we went to Africa, as well. In our case, it was a photo safari.
Comments