Elephant Killed. Starving Town Eats. PETA Complains.

Bob Parsons -- the CEO of the internet hosting firm GoDaddy.com -- recently returned from a trip to Zimbabwe where his vacation videos captured a hunt for an elephant plaguing a small village on the verge of starvation. The night-time hunt was successful, preventing the elephants from further ruining dwindling crops. Further, the meat from the one elephant killed fed a significant portion of the villager who furiously worked to harvest every scrap of meat:

But as we've reported, a number of animal rights activists are hollering about animal cruelty. PETA has honored Parsons with its first-ever "scummiest CEO of the year award."

You deserve the award for your egregious disregard for the life of the elephant you shot and killed for your personal enjoyment. Such behavior only shows a poverty of understanding and a deep insecurity, perhaps in your own masculinity. Nonlethal methods are available to protect crops from elephants left hungry because of their disappearing habitat.

"I stand by my decision to help African villagers," Parsons responded on his blog. "I believe elephant management is beneficial. I have the support of the people who really matter in this situation, the families of Zimbabwe -- people who need help to survive. I have the support of tribal leaders and the government."

But PETA wasn't the only group criticizing Parsons for his hunting excursion and video. TIME added:

[T]here are so many things wrong with this video that it's hard to know where to start. First off: is it really appropriate to score a scene of hungry villagers in Zimbabwe tearing apart a dead elephant to the tunes of AC/DC's "Hells Bells"? And I can't be the only one who found it creepy that Parsons had outfitted nearly everyone in the area with bright orange GoDaddy baseball caps. Not to mention the fact that this is all taking place in Zimbabwe, a broken country oppressed by the tyrannical Robert Mugabe, where 64% of the population lives under the poverty line and nearly 100% live in fear. This is one step up from taking spring break in North Korea.

Let me get this straight: the man just fed an entire village of starving people, saved their crop supply and gave out free hats and you're mad?