The American hunter Tess Talley is delighted to kill a "rare" black giraffe. So what is she under fire?

Images of a Kentucky hunter posing with the body of a black giraffe that she killed in South Africa triggered an online reaction after becoming viral on social networks.

Thousands of Twitter users have expressed their indignation. killing the giraffe during a hunting trip last summer.

"The prayers for my dream hunt, once in my life, have come true today! He spotted this rare black giraffe bull and harbaded it for a while," he said. Talley wrote in a post since deleted on Facebook, according to USA Today .

The message says that the animal was over 18 years old, weighed 1,820 kg and produced 900 kg of meat. On average, giraffes have a life expectancy of 25 years, according to National Geographic .

Efforts to reach Talley for comment were unsuccessful.

The Images became viral only recently after being reposted on Twitter last month by the Africalandpost website.

Debra Messing, an actress known for her role in the television series NBC Will and Grace describes Talley on Instagram as "disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish". murderer.

Comedian Ricky Gervais, who often publishes on animal conservation issues, called Talley a blasphemy on Twitter and lamented the giraffes being in jeopardy.

Talley defended himself in an email to Fox News in a story posted on his website, saying that the giraffe belonged to a South African subspecies that is not uncommon.

"The number of these subspecies increases in part due to hunters and conservation efforts largely funded by big game hunting "

Big game hunting is legal in South Africa, where industry and related tourism bring in $ 2 billion a year, according to the BBC

Giraffes were ranked as "vulnerable" in 2016 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which manages the list of endangered species in the world.The number of giraffes in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by nearly 40% since 1985, according to the organization.

Talley is not the first American to have been criticized for big game hunting. In 2015, a dentist in Minneapolis festered for killing Cecil, a famous Zimbabwean lion.

The sons of US President Donald Trump, Donald Jnr and Eric, enjoy hunting big game, according to their father. Photos of them posing with animals that they had killed in 2011, including a leopard, sparked criticism after their reappearance in 2016.

In March, the US Fish and Wildlife Service authorized Importing large trophies on a case by case basis, overturning a ban initiated under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.