British Trophy Hunter Invites People To 'Slaughter' Endangered Animals In South Africa Amid COVID-19

A British trophy-hunting boss is offering deals to shoot ?endangered animals which he says have grown in population amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to The Sun, Knight, who has previously been pictured posing with dead animals, offered up the deal to some 3,000 customers for the gut-wrenching animal slaughter scheme.

MailOnline/Instagram

Reports state that hunters can pay up to shoot lions, leopards and elephants and bring home trophies from the slain creatures.

Carl Knight, 46, from Epsom, Surrey, who runs Take Aim Safaris in Johannesburg and Zimbabwe, sent out an email newsletter to clients across the globe to take part in the blood sport. "Big elephant and trophy buffalo + hippo, croc are plentiful. The areas are well-rested, the animal movement is fantastic," The Sun quoted his mail. "I have a quota available on big cats: leopard and lion plus elephant bulls at unbeatable prices."

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He also appeared to downplay the threat from COVID-19, with it, the fact that currently it's illegal to travel from the UK for leisure.

MailOnline

Despite Mr Knight's claims the animals are 'plentiful' after being 'rested' during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are currently an estimated 415,000 African Elephants in the wild and the species is at risk of extinction.

There are only 20,000 African Lions left in the wild, with numbers plummeting by over 40 per cent in the last three generations due to hunting, according to the World Wildlife Foundation.

Also Read: Botswana Just Legalised Hunting Elephants Because There Are Too Many Of Them

The Sun quoted Eduardo Gonclaves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting as saying, "The US government says lions could be gone from the wild by 2050.

TheSun

"Yet Carl Knight is still selling lucrative hunts in these and other endangered animals to make money for himself and put a sick smile on the face of those who enjoy killing animals just for fun."

Mr Gonclaves called for Knight to be "stripped of his British citizenship" for "slaughtering huge numbers of the world's most threatened species".