Three businesspeople from Russia’s republic of Sakha sparked a torrent of criticism on social media after posting photos and videos of a lion hunt in South Africa that critics said violated the traditional hunting values of their native region.
The backlash began when Galina Yakovleva posted a video on Instagram showing her husband, Alexei Yakovlev, shooting a resting lion at close range on Sunday.
“I went with my husband to see with my own eyes how he hunts. It turns out it’s hard for a woman to be there in that moment. I thought, ‘It takes guts to go after a predator.’ I’m proud of my husband!” Yakovleva said.
In a separate post, fellow Sakha businessman Yuri Bolshakov said he had applied for a hunting permit a year in advance, traveled to a private hunting reserve near the Botswana border, tracked a lioness for several days and shot her in a way that would not damage the animal’s pelt.
“It wasn’t a battle. It was a dialogue between two worlds, in which each remained true to itself,” he wrote.
