Corgatelli said she has received numerous negative comments on her photos, including death threats against her, Neilson and their son, but both defended their African hunt.
\"People like to claim that hunters like us are hunting endangered species when that is absolutely factually incorrect,” Neilson said.
Neither Neilson nor Corgatelli condone what Palmer and Seski did if their hunts were in fact illegal, as Zimbabwe officials have claimed.
Palmer has acknowledged killing Cecil but said that the hunt was done legally.
Seski could not be reached for comment by ABC News, but the safari operator denied that the hunt was unlawful and that Seski acted in \"good faith.\"
When done legally, Neilson insisted that hunting in Africa helps with conservation because big game hunters pay national parks thousands of dollars to hunt lions and other wild animals, generating revenue for the parks so they can provide the animals protection from habitat loss and poachers.
“It’s not about the few lions that are killed every year by sports hunters. It’s about the tens of thousands of acres of habitat that are lost every year,” Neilson said. “Hunting absolutely is the only tool right now that’s paying for the vast majority of the wildlife conservation throughout the continent of Africa... We might take a small surplus of [lions], but without what we’re doing there won’t be any of them at all.”
But Adam Roberts, the CEO of the non-profit wildlife conservation organization Born Free USA, said it was a \"fantasy\" to believe that trophy hunting somehow benefits the animals.
“This about a blood lust for entertainment, a thrill kill and when you take animal, whether it’s an elephant or a rhino or a lion out of their family system and out of their ecosystem, it does nothing to enhance conversation,” Roberts told “Nightline.” “The vast majority of the money is not coming from trophy hunting, not supporting African conversation and not supporting the African people.”
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