There has been a worrying increase in the number of hunters who showcase their trophies on social media. This is seen by many critics as trivialising the lives of the animals which have been taken. When a hunter takes a picture of their kill and posts it on an online platform, they risk incurring the outrage of the general public.
One such incident occurred in 2018 when an American hunter posted images of herself posing with a dead animal while on a trip to Scotland. The British press condemned her act, and the Scottish 
government even implied that they would respond by changing their hunting laws.
Hunters who kill exotic animals have caused an even more considerable amount of outrage with their trophy posts. The killing of the African lion “Cecil” by a big game hunter gave rise to a phenomenon called the “Cecil Effect”. The number of foreign hunters who came to the continent to kill lions significantly reduced after the high level of public anger over the death of “Cecil”. This suggests that the shaming of hunters on social media has had a serious impact on the industry.
