Trophy hunting is maybe the most egregious display of animal cruelty not yet prohibited by law -- and Under Armour apparel corporation has based an advertising campaign on it.
The offensive hashtag #UAHunt invites its customers to post images of their kills -- and the more exotic and rare the animal, the better. Make no mistake: this isn’t subsistence hunting, it’s a grisly celebration of animals slaughtered for sport so that hunters can snap a nice pic of their carcass.
Elk, wolves, foxes and bears are all on the table -- one high profile hunter killed a mountain lion with a 10mm Glock after her hounds exhausted the noble animal and chased it up a tree. And Under Armour has been cheering it all on, populating its social media feeds with one gruesome pic after another -- all in the name of selling its products.
This has to stop. Tell Under Armour you won’t be buying its products until it stops endorsing trophy killing for profit.
Under Armour is already feeling the heat -- in August it was forced to part ways with Sarah Bowmar, a celebrity hunter who took part in a brutal killing of a Canadian black bear with her husband Josh. Josh Bowmar lured the bear with a mound of bait and then impaled it with a homemade spear. Worse, he attached a GoPro camera to his spear and caught the whole killing on video -- which caught Bowmar laughing maniacally. Public outrage prompted Canadian authorities to ban spear hunting and Under Armour to drop its sponsorship of Sarah.
We know Under Armour is susceptible to public pressure -- it has a huge customer base who don’t hunt or only hunt responsibly. We also know these campaigns work. Last year, 250,000 SumOfUs members got Delta, Air Canada, American, United and Virgin airlines to prohibit the transport of “trophy” animals on their planes after the tragic poaching death of Cecil the Lion in Africa. We can make Under Armour see where it went wrong.
We need to show Under Armour that trophy hunting is unacceptable. Demand it stops its despicable #UAHunt campaign now.
More information
Under Armour Just Dropped the Wife of Hunter Who Speared a Bear
Fortune. 22 August 2016.
Fortune. 22 August 2016.