12-Year-Old Receives Death Threats for Online Hunting Pictures

Anti-hunters are attacking a 12-year-old girl on Facebook for posting pictures of herself posing with a giraffe and a zebra that she killed while on a hunt with her dad. Going on a big-game hunt like this is a once in a lifetime experience, and most hunters are only able to dream of such a trip.

Aryanna Gourdin and her father, Eli Gourdin, recently traveled to South Africa for a hunting trip together, one in which they will remember together forever. After a very successful adventure, Aryanna proudly shared her hunting photos on her personal Facebook page – Braids and Bows – with a caption reading “One of my dream hunts for sure.” No problems there, right? Wrong. These photos created an uproar of angry non-hunters, who apparently are the only people on the planet who love animals.

Of the 73,000 comments on one of the photos, some went as far as to threaten Aryanna’s and her father’s lives. Others called her “sick” and “an animal hater.” There were some that supported her, leaving encouraging comments such as, “Let the haters hate! Hunt away Aryanna.”

Let me say this: If I ever had the opportunity to go on a hunt like that, and was successful at harvesting these beautiful creatures, I would be posting those pictures left and right too. It’s something that those people who commented on her photos criticizing her will never understand.

The thing that everyone who was upset by these photos chose to dismiss, however, is that Aryanna and her father were offered to hunt the giraffe because it was “a problem animal, and was eating up valuable resources other giraffes need to survive.” Also, the meat was donated to a local village and will help feed 800 orphans over the next month.

It’s like anything else that I don’t seem to understand about Facebook: If it bothers you and “upsets” you, (que the sad violin music) then don’t go out of your way to view it, because after all, the photos were on her personal page.

As for Aryanna, she doesn’t seem to be phased, and doesn’t plan to give up one of her favorite activities anytime soon. “I would never back down from hunting,” she said. “I am a hunter, and no matter what people say to me, I’m never going to stop.”

OutdoorHub Editor: Keenan Crow

Keenan Crow is an outdoor writer who graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in journalism and creative writing. He has been writing for OutdoorHub for nearly five years, but anybody he is close with will tell you he has been telling hunting stories for far longer. He uses his experiences outdoors to write about things he loves - bow hunting, fishing, upland hunting, shed hunting, turkey hunting, waterfowl hunting, dog training, shotguns, ATVs and the outdoor lifestyle he lives in his home state of Michigan. Outside of hunting/fishing, he also loves to cook - especially with wild game - play golf and go on hikes with his yellow lab, Stella.