Video: Shooting an Elephant — Why GoDaddy's CEO Was Wrong

We all shoot vacation videos, but most of us choose to keep them to ourselves—or, at worst, share them with our Facebook friends.

Bob Parsons—the CEO of the Internet hosting firm GoDaddy.com, which you will know from its lame Super Bowl ads and absolutely nothing else—likes bigger exposure. Parsons recently posted a video of his trip to Zimbabwe, where he shot an elephant.

GoDaddy has unscrupulously set their videos on autoplay, so I won't embed the video here. You can check it at this link: Video of GoDaddy's CEO shooting an elephant

Now, there are so many things wrong with this video that it's hard to know where to start.

But of course the biggest criticism has come from animal rights advocates who view Parsons' video—which shows him shooting and killing an elephant, then standing proudly over its corpse—as, well, showing poor taste. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) singled out Parsons for particular abuse:

I am writing to present you with PETA's first-ever scummiest CEO of the year award (your certificate is on the way). You deserve the award for your egregious disregard for the life of the elephant you shot and killed for your personal enjoyment. Such behavior only shows a poverty of understanding and a deep insecurity, perhaps in your own masculinity. Nonlethal methods are available to protect crops from elephants left hungry because of their disappearing habitat.

Parsons defended himself on his blog, arguing that his target was a "problem elephant" that had been destroying the crops of a nearby village:

I stand by my decision to help African villagers. I believe elephant management is beneficial. I have the support of the people who really matter in this situation, the families of Zimbabwe -- people who need help to survive. I have the support of tribal leaders and the government.

Parsons isn't totally wrong—there is such a thing as "problem elephants", but that doesn't mean that the best way to deal with this conflict is for rich foreigners like Parsons to make like Hemingway. There are sensible, non-lethal solutions, including chili and tobacco-based deterrents that keep elephants out of farmers' fields, or simply growing crops that elephants don't like. WWF has more in this issue brief.

It's been a long time since shooting an elephant could be considered fashionable.

ORIGINAL SOURCE

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