The company that hosted the Trump brothers on their hunting trip in Zimbabwe has been flooded with hate mail from around the world after photographs were released of Eric and Donald Trump jnr posing with the carcasses of the animals they had killed.
It was too much for Freddie Oosterhuis of Hunting Legends International, who hosted the Trumps’ hunt, and he retaliated with an e-mail peppered with four-letter words to Cape Town conservationist Stephen Lamb.
Lamb had e-mailed the company on its website objecting to the hunting and the “distasteful” way the two men had posed with the animals, in one instance with Donald Trump jnr standing next to the carcass of an elephant he had shot, holding up the animal’s tail he had cut off as a trophy. Another showed them next to a crocodile hanging from a tree.
Oosterhuis e-mailed back in Afrikaans: “F**k you man. Who do you think you are you poor c**t. F**k you, f**k your mother, f**k your father, f**k your wife, your children and your life. You are f**kall P***face.... Go f**k your hand.”
Asked to comment on Monday, Oosterhuis was contrite. “Look, I shouldn’t have done it. I wrote him two e-mails, one was to apologise. His e-mail came after thousands of e-mails from people saying things like they want to see us hanging from trees and dragged behind trucks and how disgusting it is and all that. We’ve been attacked from people from all over the world but we run a legitimate business. But I shouldn’t have done it,” Oosterhuis said.
The hunting company posted some of the hatemail on their website. One from Kathleen Rennan in the US said: “You are sick f***ers! F**K YOU.”
Patricia Massari wrote: “Is your d**k ... so incredibly small that you have to kill animals on ‘safari’ to feel like a man?”
Christopher Dunn wrote:”You are clearly a huge piece of s**t ...I wish you a speedy death, hopefully extremely painful and drawn out so everyone you care about suffers greatly.”
Hunting Legends International explains on its website that private game parks cost a lot to maintain, and legal hunting is one way to fund them.
“Sure, everybody wants to see wildlife protected for generations to come,” the website said, “however, not enough people in this world dig into their own pockets and spend enough money visiting these sanctuaries or donating to them (and) most border on the verge of bankruptcy...”
They say when animals could roam freely, nature took care of over-population. Now, hunting was a way to reduce over-population and fund game parks.
Lamb took issue with this argument.
“That is a soundbite to lull the public into the false perception that something good comes out of this killing.” - Cape Times