Viewers were not happy.
Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield left viewers horrified after a sit down interview with a trophy hunter on This Morning.
The presenters confronted the hunter on the show when she defended the killing of one of Botswana’s biggest elephants by Leon Kachelhoffer, asking if this form of hunting is ever acceptable.
Trophy Hunter Olivia Opre said that the elephant that was killed was very old and was on his own, and justified that this hunting his helping communities.
“There is also an argument that it leads to unnecessary suffering so you have Cecil the lion, that 12-year-old lion – we all saw those pictures in 2015 – shot with a crossbow and left to suffer apparently for 14 hours before the hunter went back to kill him. That’s not okay is it?” Phillip asked.
Olivia responded: “Hunters take pride in making sure that the weapon they’ve chosen, the bullet that they’ve selected is going to have the quickest death to their life.”
“That one didn’t,” Holly then said.
“But you also have to look at nature. What does nature’s death look like? He’s either going to get stabbed by another bull, he may be poached, or he may starve,” Olivia added.
‘It’s a bit more of a fair playing field in nature though, isn’t it?” Holly asked.
“Nature is going to put disease forth and you’re going to have hundreds of elephants that were killed just this year because of overpopulation,” Olivia argued.
“Where do you stop then?” Phil then added. “If you’re saying, “Nature now has no place in the animal kingdom, all of these animals are going to die anyway so we may as well just kill them.””
Giles Clark, Director of The Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent also appeared on the show, and argued that Olivia’s point that killing an older bull would not have an impact on the herd was incorrect, saying that studies show they have a huge impact.
