@ukanonymous
//I consider the condemning of this action hypocrisy and the people who do so just as bad as the culprit who committed it.//
No, it is not hypocrisy to criticise it. The manner of dispatch is the limit of the similarity.*
Livestock exist worldwide and have all become phenomenally successful species, in terms of number and variety but only thanks to the way we turned natural forests into pasture land, as well as shipping them to parts of the planet which they could not reach by themselves. Indeed they might still be as rare as giraffe if we hadn't developed the desire to eat them.
Other than in zoos, giraffe have limited areas suitable for them and circulating an image on social media, suggesting that they are legal to hunt cannot be a good thing. The backstory will get forgotten the more the pic is passed around.
* The story about providing food to the locals has the ring of 'plausible cover story'. Except how long does fresh meat keep at equatorial temperatures? And, if it was an old animal, wouldn't the meat be tough and unpalatable?
Lastly, not letting the scavenger animals get the benefit of the carcass means they were interfering with the whole local ecosystem, not just one animal which was happily minding its own business.
p.s. I suspect the 'lingering death' bs is just another post-hoc attempt at justifying the despicable interference with letting nature take its course.
A month or two ago, the same justification was applied to a 30+ year old black rhino. A "once in a lifetime opportunity" was given to a male tourist (again American, surprise, surprise) - for wads of cash, obviously.
I can see this trend continuing. It may well be raising funds to help wildlife preservation attempts but the ends doesn't necessitate that I have to like the means.