Ask first, judge later

She looked friendly and very happy with herself.

Upon closer inspection of the small picture you could see she was holding a shot gun in her arms.

In the background there lay the reason for her happiness – the corpse of a giraffe.

This huge majestic animal lay crumpled on the ground and its neck, once tall and regal, looked like a limp rag that had been tossed aside.

For a moment I could not comprehend how this pretty young woman could possibly find any source of happiness in what she had done.

And I immediately started to judged her.

In my mind I completely condemned her for the image I was seeing, making numerous assumptions about what had happened.

Before I knew it, I responded on social media, letting my anger at an ‘assumed’ situation come tumbling out in an aggressive personal attack on this complete stranger.

Now, my daughter is an animal lover. She is passionate about animal welfare all around the world.

So I showed her the image I had seen and then the message I had sent the woman. A message that had received no response.

Later that evening, she came and shared with me a series of messages she had sent and the responses she had received from this woman’s husband.

My daughter had begun a respectful conversation by first asking about the circumstances of what appeared to be a senseless killing, explaining she was a student in Australia wanting to understand why his wife had done this.

She challenged him about what had been done with the animal now it was dead. Was it killed merely for amusement and its body discarded or was the meat and skin now being utilised?

Looking at the intelligent way she had managed to get her message across compared with the emotional attack I had composed, I felt a little embarrassed.

She discovered that the animal had been chosen for hunting because it was an elderly male past its mating age. The meat had been donated to a local orphanage along with the skin that was then used to make products sold for extra money.

Neither my daughter nor I like the image or indeed the thought of a gentle creature like a giraffe being hunted.

But sometimes, even if you don’t like what you see, asking questions without judgement and listening to the answers can have a far more powerful impact on a situation.

My message was ignored but her voice was heard. And who knows what impact that could have had on this couple on the other side of the world.