NSW MP admits killing & eating an elephant during Zimbabwe hunting trip

In 2015, a number of animal attacks on humans occurred across wildlife parks in African nation. One of them was when an elephant attacked a 29-year-old American animal researcher in Zambia in July.

On Tuesday, an Australian MP from New South Wales sparked outrage among animal rights group after he admitted that he not only killed an elephant in Zimbabwe a few year ago during a hunting trip but also ate the animal. Robert Borsak describes the elephant meat, fried in butter, as tasty similar to venison, or deer meat.

The MP from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party spoke against pro-animal rights activists and defended the right to eat meat, reports The Telegraph. In a speech, Borsak said, “Animals do not have an intrinsic human right. Humans have a right to eat meat if they chose to do so. It is as simple as that,” quotes The Sydney Morning Herald.

He insisted, in a later newspaper interview, that killing elephants is part of Zimbabwe’s managed animal control programme because there is an excess of elephants in that country. “Under the law you are not allowed to waste the animals. 99 per cent of the animal then gets taken,” the MP adds.

However, his admission made Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham question Borsak’s fitness as an MP. “It’s sick to shoot and kill an elephant for thrills, and it’s revolting that Mr Borsak would eat the elephant,” Buckingham says.

Borsak explains that hunting and consumption of animals in Africa is done “on the basis that nothing is wasted.” He shot the elephant at a traditional tribal area in the Zambezi Valley which permits hunting, unlike in national parks where it is prohibited, during a hunting trip before he became MP in 2010, the party stated.

The party calls the Greens MP a hypocrite because he ate the freshly hunted venison sausages that Borsak brought at a parliamentary barbecue.