There’s something gorgeous about a woman who hunts. It makes lots of beta males absolutely uncomfortable that a chick has subversively inverted their roles, despite the fact that the closest most betas come to a gun is in Call of Duty.
So when a picture of an easy-on-the-eyes young woman surfaced on the intertubes a few days ago standing over a lion she just shot in South Africa, beta males and lesser women (hard to tell the difference) were outraged, OUTRAGED I tell you!
pictured: our generation’s Eva Braun
Petitions were furiously typed with Cheeto-stained, chubby fingers, asking that hostess of “Winchester Deadly Passion” Melissa Bachman (the other Bachman) never be allowed to enter South Africa again. Of course, people followed with more fury, sending her death threats and claiming she should be killed, because that’s productive dialogue.
Elan Burman, the Cape Town resident who created the petition, had this to say: “She is an absolute contradiction to the culture of conservation this country prides itself on”, neglecting the fact that this is a “culture of conservation” that produced apartheid just two decades earlier.
South Africa: “we’ll conserve lions, but we’ll kill black people!”
Signatory Richard Robinson wrote, ‘You didn’t kill a lion, you stood behind a machine and pulled a little trigger, you pathetic, sad excuse of a human.’
Signatory Richard Robinson apparently has advanced dementia, because he doesn’t understand that she did, indeed, kill a lion. Would he rather she stabbed the lion with a large knife, causing the lion to suffer? Would he rather she pulled a big trigger?
Of course, no news story is complete without input from Buzzfeed (Reddit for the redditarded)
Their crackerjack contributor Matt Stopera says:
Yikes.
The lion she hunted was in an official game park in South Africa, so technically it was totally legal.
But for anyone who has been on safari in Africa, you know just how fucked up it is to kill a lion.
Right guys? So fucked up! Totally not as fucked up as all that other killing that goes on in Africa.
Then the article takes a left turn at Harare:
I spent a few days in Botswana last month with lion experts and filmmakers, Beverly and Dereck Joubert.
One thing that the Jouberts said to me that really stuck was, “Hunting a lion is the most cowardly thing you can do.”
So when Melissa Bachman posted that picture, I was very unimpressed. Also disgusted.
Somehow, this went from a “serious discussion about hunting lions” to “HAI GUYZ LET ME SHOW N TELL ABOUT MY TRIP TO AFRICA”
From spending some time on the safari, I also realized there were a few gaps in her story.
First off, “stalking” lions means you have a guide. That guide takes you out in a big van.
Noted hunting expert Matt Stopera helpfully describes that you have to take a van to go hunting in the wildnerness.
I was under the impression people rode penny farthing bikes.
Our guide’s name was James.
You find buffalo.
All of this is interspersed with photos of Matt’s guide and the buffalo they saw, officially making this the shittiest home movie in existence.
It’s not always buffalo, but generally the lions stay close to animals they’re hunting.
And BOOM. There’s a lion sitting in the shade. Relaxing.
You can almost smell the Serengeti.
Now for the lions themselves.
Here were three things I learned:
1. Lions are big cats (duh). They act like them too.
2. They just sleep and sit around all day, like cats.
3. Lions do not give a shit about you. They see you as that big van. They don’t mess with you.
It concerns me that our public education system produces people so stupid that they have to convince us that lions are cats and act like cats.
Anyone’s who’s owned a cat and knows how murderous they are with birds or small animals can easily imagine what they’d do if that bird was human sized and the cat was 30x larger as well.
But I’m relieved to know that lions don’t give a shit about me, just like how Matt Stopera doesn’t give a shit about the facts.
There was one instance when we were out with the lions and they sat next to our truck and used it as shade. They were literally three feet away from us.
Glad to see a photo of a greasy hipster posing in front of lions. Can I sue Buzzfeed for stealing away portions of my life?
Here a male lion is walking right next to the car I’m in.
And helpfully, Matt Stopera added arrows in the photo pointing at him and the lion, in case I could get confused between a liberal arts major and a four-legged carnivore.
Like, I am straight up chilling next to a pride of lions.
What the hell does this have to do with the chick who shot a lion again?
Still just sitting there. They aren’t moving.
Matt Stopera never studied physics, because the photo clearly shows the lions in motion.
We actually had to start the engine to startle them a bit so they would walk away from the shade of our truck.
Just to show you how incredibly difficult it is to hunt a lion…here’s a selfie I took next to one.The lion is sleeping, and so am I.
Insomniacs: don’t refill your Seroquel prescription and read Matt Stopera’s inane ramblings instead. I will guarangoddamntee you’ll hit a pillow faster than Chris Brown hitting a conga line full of exes.
As you can see, the lion tried to run away from us.
JK, he fell asleep…
…and tried to block the light from his eyes.
Lions, like many cats, tend to be nocturnal and sleep during the day. If Matt Stopera gave a shit about actually learning biology, he’d tell you that.
To sum things up: Hunting a lion isn’t very hard. To kill a lion you have to be a coward.
To sum things up: clearly from the photo, Bachman shot the lion towards the end of the day. If she stalked it 60 yards, that means it was very much awake—just at the beginning of its usual hunting time.
To hide the facts, you have to be a coward *cough* Matt Stopera *cough*
The facts are this:
1) b…b…b…but lions are an endangered species! What she did was WRONG
While the African lion is rated “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, it is not officially an endangered species and hunting them is legal in a number of countries, including South Africa.
2) These evil hunters—they exploit South Africa!
Actually, these people boost South Africa’s economy—to the tune of millions of dollars: “In the 2010, hunting season, for which comprehensive information was available, total revenue of approximately R1.1-billion was generated by the local and trophy hunting industries collectively.”–South Africa’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa.
3) These people are the opposite of conservation! They just come in and kill for fun!
“Statistics compiled in 2010 indicate that there are approximately 18 800 white rhino in South Africa and the number of white rhino has increased over tenfold since hunting and live-sales started” she reported.
Hunters—the real conservationists. Safaris for lion (where you go out but you’re not guaranteed an animal) range from $12,000 to $60,000. And hunts that are auctioned where you are guaranteed a lion cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. One lion killed can save dozens. And in fact, hunting tamps down on illegal poaching—by providing more oversight, a safer environment for the animals, and more enforcement efforts.
In fact, you can confidently say that Melissa Bachman, in paying to hunt this one lion, saved more lions than the collective efforts of the thousands of people who signed the petition to ban her for the country.
And that’s how this beautiful young lady and her trusted rifle trolled you all.
**Fun bonus update: some chick on my friends list posted this article on her news feed, then called me an “asshole” for disagreeing with her and blocked me. Check it out below!
**Super fun boner bonus update: unhinged chick gets more unhinged:
I love it when people claim that it’s ok for them to not be nice, and somehow I’m the asshole.
