The piece further depicted the local residents butchering the elephant while sporting GoDaddy.com hats and boasting about how many people this elephant will feed.
The video went viral as animal activists and concerned citizens were horrified and urged a boycott of the GoDaddy.com site. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals immediately closed its account. In fact, the Washington Post Blog is reporting that other domain-name providers are seizing this opportunity to encourage people to leave GoDaddy.com using coupon names and donations to Save the Elephants for each switch.
Parsons insists that he is simultaneously assisting farmers who can lose their crops at the feet of a stomping elephant and providing much needed food to hungry villagers.
Man's conflict with wildlife is not a new problem. As property is developed and malls, golf courses and homes encroach upon wildlife habitats, confrontations occur. Be it coyotes, mountain lions and bears in California, or elephants in Zimbabwe - the story is the same. Animals want to eat, drink and mate. People want lawns, crops and upright garbage pails. And each is willing to defend their space.
However, there are rational, scientific and humane alternatives to these problems that foster peaceful co-existence between humans and wildlife. It is also the case regarding elephants. For example, the World Wildlife Fund suggests chili and tobacco-based deterrents as one idea of many to keep the elephants out of the fields.
Simply perpetuating the battle without humane change will not address the problem at its root. Preserve our wildlife, endangered or otherwise, or teach our children anything but violence. It will, however, leave many carcasses in our path. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in opposing violence as a solution to anything - "That old law about an "eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind."
