Tell facebook to stop hosting pages that promote trophy hunting, canned hunting, taxidermy & poaching of native African wildlife!

PHOTO: Opathe Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. A dead white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) killed by poachers for its horns.

I feel so strongly about this that I actually quit facebook – because I believe facebook is simply not doing anywhere near enough to stop trophy hunting.

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg,

In the beginning, facebook was okay. Mainly because it was useful. Facebook encouraged people to find my old aquaintences. Facebook made it easy for me to find people. I could never do that before. So I let my account stay — because there was a benefit in leaving it there. I filled in a few of my "life events". And that was it...

But now almost a decade later, facebook has morphed into an altogether different beast. Facebook is hosting and thereby *actively supporting* all manner of shitty "internet pages" that are completely devoted  to attacking nature.

If I had have known back then that you'd be hosting Kendall Jones' trophy hunting page today, I would never have signed up in the first place! I would have convinced all my friends and family to avoid facebook like the black plague.

1 million people may well 'like' Kendal Jones' facebook page, but I *know* that one billion people would 'like' to see it go. To be frank, 1 billion people hate the woman's guts, okay... and that's putting it mildly.

Now if I have to chose to live in a world without facebook or a world without rhinos, I would choose to live in the world without facebook every single time.

What has facebook got to do with this? Well, if you would like to see what I am talking about, simply search for pages on facebook with the following keywords: "African taxidermy", "trophy hunting", "safari hunting", "canned hunting", etc. There are hundreds of pages dedicated to this sordid business.

Facebook is making it too darn easy for people to actually book safaris and to then go and kill these animals. I think social media is partly to blame for the increased levels of poaching in the last few years...

So today, as a sign of how strongly I feel about this, I'm quitting facebook. And when someone informs me by some other means that Kendall Jones' facebook abhorrent 'page' has ceased to exist, well then I might come back one day and personally congratulate you for making the right choice.

Rhinos can't send Mr Zuckerberg this personal message, can they? So I am doing it on their behalf.

Mr. Zuckerberg, if you would like to improve your company, and help out native African wildlife at the same time, you can start by completely reforming facebook by taking each and every single report about facebook pages more seriously.

You could say "facebook does not support trophy hunting, safari hunting, canned hunting, poaching or African taxidermy". You could say "no more selfies with dead animals". I think that's ultimately what you must do.

Otherwise, here is what you are essentially supporting:
[warning warning warning very graphic content ahead if you click that link, you've been warned now].

Do you know what I learned last year? I learned that people only stay in relationships while it benefits them.

Well today, I don't see any benefit in facebook. Rather, I see that facebook is getting a lot of the benefit, along with trophy hunters, and all the native African wildlife is being massively fucked over.

I myself am seeing precious little to make me want to hang around connected to your website. But the real reason for my hasty departure, the last straw if you will, is of course because you are hosting the despicable pages of hundreds of trophy hunters.

I think enough is enough already and you should just not condone this any longer.

If I could give you one piece of advice, Mark, it's this: "Try to please all and you shall please none."

What that means is, you've really got to start choosing what kind of people you want to be associated with. When 100,000 people or more start leaving your platform in droves —because they don't like what you seem to support— maybe you might start to pay attention to what the users want. Do you even remember us? ... the billions of users that made you who you are today.

Dr. Leslie Dean Brown

P.S: I am aware of the irony involved in what I am about to say, but if you decide to leave facebook, remember: before you go, please sign this petition first, share it on facebook for a bit, make sure all your facebooky friends see it first, maybe give a countdown, use facebook to your advantage, and then go. If you leave first and then come here (like I did), you won't be able to update anybody online. It'll be like you just vanished off the face of the Earth. Of course, if they are real friends, you'll be able to tell them why in person.

Tell facebook the real reason why you are leaving! I did. Don't just leave without telling them why! That way your departure will actually count for something and more people will realise why you aren't around anymore... ;-)

Keep signing and sharing and lets end this together! I also encourage you to donate directly to the Black Mambas and smaller organisations like that that actually protect rhinos (I do).