(ANSA) - ROME, APRIL 29 - Anger among American animal rights activists over a video in which the controversial leader of the National RifleAssociation (NRA), the powerful US arms lobby, repeatedly shoots an elephant in Botswana. The BBC reports it.
Released two days ago by The New Yorker and The Trace, the 2013 video shows Wayne LaPierre shooting the animal three times from close range. Then he gets nervous for not being able to kill him and at that point a second hunter intervenes and finishes the elephant. His wife Susan also appears in the footage and shoots and kills another elephant. Nonpaga cuts off its tail and waving it in the air shouts 'Victory'.
The condemnation by the animal organizations was immediate. "Behind the macho and masculine attitude of the NRA are frightened little men who pay tens of thousands of dollars for someone else to track the elephants so they can shoot them ineptly at close range," said Ingrid Newkirk, president of Peta.
The arms lobby defended its president by explaining that elephant hunting was not illegal at the time. The country, where more than 130,000 specimens live, banned the practice in 2014. The ban was then lifted in 2019 and the government has been auctioning hunting permits ever since. (HANDLE).
