Bob Parson's elephant killing.
 

warning: video may be considered graphic by some.

Was this a bad thing or a good thing that he did?

As I saw the ending and all the people that was there to get meat off the bones of the bull elephant, if they did not get the meat they had to get food elsewhere.

I think it was a good thing, one animal died, others got to eat it. It did not appear to be wasteful.

I'm not currently able to comment on the conservation of animals and the culling because of acceptable numbers, I'm only able to comment on the people who are hungry and not able to get enough food for themselves.

I'm not going to watch the video. Don't see as how I need to to make my comment.

I'm certainly not against people eating animals that live within their environment in abundance (can't say whether that is true of the elephants in Zimbabwe or not), but there is a lack of humility and abundance of disrespect, in my opinion, in making videos and otherwise acting like the 'great white hunter' in the process of doing it. I wouldn't want to watch it any more than I would want to watch a snuff film. There's no human glory in killing an animal. Any animal.

Strikes me as the kind of tone-deaf tastelessness that is the hallmark of GoDaddy. I think it's dumb. This dude was obviously getting his boner stroked by shooting the elephant. Any rationalizations about helping poor helpless tribesfolk are transparent. Not to mention vaguely racist. As if these folks needed some American tourist to help them deal with an elephant.

it may have been necessary but he didnt have to publicize it

If the elephants stole our land we would be "unruly" too.
Altogether a sad story.

This.

He could have done it tastefully. He could have kept it quiet. He could have treated the animal with more dignity than to pose with it as its vanquisher, weapon in hand.

And now, for your interest:

Animal Planet :: News :: Elephants Mourn Their Dead


Elephant intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i've seen this before... so sad

This bubbled up into my sphere because of it's impact on me professionally -- which is to say, not directly, but because his organization and mine could be said to be competitors. It slid across my digital desk with comments that amounted to 'look what that moron has done now.'

It's questionable whether the elephant needed to be shot. Perhaps there was a better, more humane way of dealing with the problem. Perhaps there wasn't. But regardless, the video is rather tasteless, and the fact that he put it up on his blog for the world to see -- really, Bob? What were you thinking?

Handing out Go Daddy hats to hungry villagers was also a nice touch.

This is how I found out about it:
Twitter / Search: #movingdomains

Originally from: Twitter / Felicia Day: Um, so the @godaddy CEO fi...

Cant for the life of me think why Zimbabwean farmers woul need help from a rich white man to shoot an elephant. A lack of guns aint exactly a problem there, is it?

_

As for killing an elephant, I do probably find it offensive on an emotional level. But morally, I wouldnt justify it as any different to an American hunter who goes out and kills beautiful animal like a moose for fun? (or an English hunter who until recently chases around a stag with a pack of dogs until it drops dead of exhaustion).... all to me are unacceptable.

Hunting for food is acceptable to me

Hunting for fun/trophies to me is not.

i think its the lack of high-powered rifles capable of piercing elephant skin and bone. also, i think this situation is different because despite the lack of coverage, elephants are overhunted (unlike moose and deer) illegally and the fact that Mr. Go-Daddy douche-fuck was able to do so in the name of helping a farmer makes him more of a "man"

Tragic loss.

I've often thought that the worst thing that can befall an animal is to cross paths with a human.

I can only hope that Karma finds this guy real soon.

Then I will cheer.

Guy goes hunting and uses rifle to take down Elephant who's been eating farmers' crops. Big deal.

This reminds me of deer who go through peoples' windshields and end up killing drivers since Bambi made hunting unpopular.

People eat meat. Animals die. Get over it.

elephants do a LOT of damage to farmers crops, and in some cases, whole villages, every year in africa- often these animals have to be shot, as there are not many ways to prevent this destruction in any effective fashion otherwise- It is not uncommon for authorities to enlist visiting hunters to kill rogue animals, as there is a shortage of skilled shooters and weapons that can do the job humanely, and there is benefit to be had from the proceeds of the money often paid for the privilege of such a hunt- so as it stands I see no particular problem with it, though turning it into a publicity stunt is certainly in poor taste...

Which thing?

Killing the elephant: neither here nor there.

Using it as a publicity stunt: Certainly tasteless, but I don't know if it was a bad thing. How's the saying go? No press is bad press.

The killing of overpopulated animals is not a bad thing. It is certainly more practical than all the alternatives discussed, especially for a poor nation.

But let's not be coy here. This is not a case of a government "enlisting" visiting hunters, or a government unable to kill these elephants. Hunting elephants is big business, and each hunter pays over ten thousand dollars to kill one. Which is also not necessarily a bad thing (though the division of the proceeds can be messed up), as it provides funds for very poor nations (and some of those funds are even used to help fight poaching, which is great, but also another clear example that Africans don't really "need" rich white guys to do this).

As for the publicity stunt, well, it's not like godaddy was ever known for tasteful advertising.

So the only part that I find fault with all of this, really, is the whole "white man's burden" nonsense of the later justification.

Personally, I also find these "wild game" hunts ridiculous. There is more sport in hunting for deer in the United States than in these "safaris" in Africa, where these guys stay on luxury resorts and then someone else tracks and surrounds the animal and then the big macho hunter is driven there, with the only job of pulling the trigger against a static animal. It is as close to "shooting fish in a barrel" as it gets.

My sister mentioned this video over the weekend, and noted that she wanted to drop GoDaddy. I'm sending her your way.

I think its pretty damned shitty. If he wanted to help them there are better ways. Elephant numbers are way down.

<---- disgusted.

Redlemon -- I appreciate the good word. It's nice to know we have fans.

Y'know, I won't pretend to know anything about elephant control. I'm not qualified to decide whether there was a better way to handle this situation, though my gut reaction is that there must be. I do know that I can't possibly understand what the situation was like for the farmers. I can project, in an abtract sense -- I can say that I imagine feelings of impotence, of fury, of dismay, as this huge organic engine of destruction lays waste to the crops that I've toiled over, and that I'm depending on to feed my family. But it's just imaginings. I lack the proper frame of reference to truly comprehend the issue from their perspective.

I can't help but wonder, though, if Mr. Parsons understands frames of reference. The overwhelming majority of his customers are from the developed world, where this sort of thing just doesn't exist. There's no contest between some abstract idea of crop destruction and the immediacy of the video in question.

There's a truism that there's no such thing as bad press. Perhaps that's the case in meatworld, but guys like Bob Parsons (or myself, for that matter) don't operate in that sphere. The systems we work with are entirely digital -- they're electrons in a machine. And when that's the world you live in, when five minutes and a mouse is all it takes to lose a customer, your name is all you have.

I don't feel confident in addressing whether it was right to shoot the elephant. I know how I feel, but feelings don't dictate right and wrong. I do feel confident in asserting that Bob Parsons is, at best, an idiot. I keep going back to my prior sentiment. Honestly, Bob, what were you thinking? What did you expect would happen?

So your sister is not the first customer we're seeing move domains, and she certainly won't be the last.

Fearless leader has been capitalizing on this, a bit. Honestly, I don't blame him. Our market can be fickle at times, and sometimes things happen that are outside your control. Some kid with a grudge launches a DoS attack, or some news outlet gets the wrong name. You always feel kind of bad about those sorts of things, because nobody did anything wrong. It's just what happens. I have no remorse over taking Go Daddy customers over this, because it was a clear and obvious example of stupidity in action.

And that's my expanded thoughts on the matter. I can't imagine what else I might say.

I think we're all pretty lucky elephants don't have better internet access, even though we might all be better off for it. The elephants' localized over-population is because of ours. Their eating people's crops becomes a matter of opinion.

I think, Martian, Parson's frame of reference is cruelly different.

That's pretty interesting

If he wanted to help the starving in Zimbabwe, he would have shot Mugabe. I did not watch the murder video, I didnt need to watch the canadian seal culling video either. I did watch the film of the tied and captive circus elephant being beaten and abused. Of course elephants mourn - and they would feel the loss of a bull as it was a family member, because to them, thats who it is.
We are onekind.