A Hunter Is Getting Death Threats For Her Photo With A Dead Giraffe

The picture went viral after Ricky Gervais posted it on Twitter. WARNING: images of dead animals.

A hunter from Utah is getting death threats on social media after comedian Ricky Gervais posted this picture of her with a giraffe she killed on his Twitter page.

What must've happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling?

The woman in the photo, Rebecca Francis, is a hunter and outdoorswoman who won a TV competition called Extreme Hunting in 2010 and hosted the show Eye of the Hunter.

Francis, a mother of three and a stepmother to five, said she has hunted zebras, lynx, brown and black bears, Alaskan moose, sheep, rams, deer, goats, and elks, even hunting while she was pregnant.

She wrote on her website that she's also a freelance writer and co-owns a website called Alti2ude Outdoors, an online hunting community.

Twitter users began immediately attacking Francis, with some sending her death threats.

Rebecca Francis how can you be so cruel enough to kill a beautiful animal then lie next to smiling .. you should be hunted down

Hope 1 day someone shoots Rebecca Francis and sits down next to her smiling for a photo while she's dying, so she knows how the giraffe felt

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS PIECE OF SHIT IS rebecca francis. I HOPE SHE DIE EXACTLY LIKE THIS GIRAFFE. HUMAN SCUM.

Francis defended herself in a statement on the HuntingLife.com Facebook page yesterday, saying the photo was from five years ago and that she hunted the giraffe because it was "inevitably going to die soon."

She wrote that every part of the giraffe was used after he was killed:

I chose to honor his life by providing others with his uses and I do not regret it for one second. Once he was down there were people waiting to take his meat. They also took his tail to make jewelry, his bones to make other things, and did not waste a single part of him. I am grateful to be a part of something so good

Francis' story is similar to another hunter's from last year, when photos shared by 19-year-old hunter Kendall Jones went viral and sparked massive outrage.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to Francis for comment.

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