There are not many people that I dislike in this world, but if I had to choose, Kendall Jones would be at the top of my list.
Jones is a Texas Tech University cheerleader who has a deep passion for hunting. Though I have no issues at all with how people spend their free time, I do however, have an issue with people who hunt and kill endangered animals for fun. According to her Facebook, Jones has had a yearning for hunting since a very young age. “I took my first trip to Zimbabwe in Africa with my family in 2004 (age nine) and watched my dad bring many animals home,” she said. “As badly as I wanted to shoot something, I was just too small.” Unfortunately, she didn’t stay “small” for long, because once she got older, handling guns became the least of her worries.
With hopes of landing a reality TV show, Jones proudly hunts wildlife in Africa, and justifies her reasoning by saying that she is a conservationist, comparing herself to former president, Teddy Roosevelt. Jones defends her behavior by saying that hunters pay large amounts of money to hunt exotic animals, then the money goes to local villages or local wildlife conservations. For example, Jones participated in a “green hunt” of a rhino, meaning that the rhino was immobilized in order to draw blood for testing and other procedures, such as micro-chipping and DNA profiling.
Though her intentions may be harmless, her actions prove otherwise. It would have been more helpful to simply give the villagers the necessities that they need, or directly give the wildlife conservations the money, rather than paying thousands of dollars to hunt and kill endangered animals. For someone who labels themselves a conservationist, I find it ironic that she feels the only way to conserve the earth is to take away from it.
Thankfully, I am not the only person who feels that what she is doing is wrong; Jones has received a significant amount of negative backlash on all of her social media sites. But these comments haven’t stopped her from boastfully posing with her captured prey. Photos of Jones proudly standing atop a lion, brashly smiling while hugging a leopard and mockingly hovering over a rhino are all reasons Facebook users have gone to extreme measures to take matters into their own hands. There are several petitions circulating the internet to help raise awareness of the harm Jones is causing for these helpless animals, including petitions to ban her visitation rights in Africa and remove her Facebook page. Some users feel so strongly about the situation that they’ve created a “Kill Kendall Jones” page. Though I don’t agree with the creation of that page, I completely understand why many people, including “Real Housewives of Miami” reality star Joanna Krupa, are completely disgusted with her. As Krupa said, “You don’t have to be an animal lover to look at these photos and see what she’s doing is wrong, and if she does get a [reality] show, what is it going to be about? Showing how to kill these beautiful creatures?”
I find nothing humane about shooting helpless animals whose populations are already depleting due to poachers and destroyed habitats. The only understandable situation in which an animal should be harmed is if it poses a deadly threat, and from the looks of it, Jones is the only one causing harm in this situation. Jones is using the advantage of her wealth to the disadvantage of innocent animals; she’s simply killing because she can afford to.
