Is hunting a sport? McGrath shooting debate rages on

Glenn McGrath posing with a dead elephant. Photo via Twitter

Wallabies great and noted columnist Peter FitzSimons has waded into the Glenn McGrath shooting row asking how hunting can be considered a sport.

McGrath was pictured posing with a gun beside the bodies of hunted animals taken during a hunting trip in 2008.

And the photos have become a significant talking point in world sport.

But today, FitzSimons, who emphasised he was not criticising McGrath directly, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald today: "Can you lot begin, by explaining in the first place, how hunting is a "sport".

"When the Waratahs take on the Crusaders and the Roosters clash with the Sea Eagles, that is sport - with both sides a chance of winning. When Adam Scott tries to put a tiny ball in a hole 400 metres away, against others trying to do the same, that is a sport.
When a mountain climber takes on a mountain, and there is a life-threatening challenge there, that is a sport.

"But a man with a rifle with a telescopic lens going out after an elephant in the wild?"
The article immediately provoked supportive comments with many commenters agreeing that hunting with a telescopic rifle was hardly "sporting".

One commenter wrote: "When is hurting or killing animals for pleasure a civilized action?"

The discussion comes as the photographer who last week shared photographs of McGrath posing with a gun beside the bodies of hunted animals, has revealed he has received countless death threats since Friday.

Acclaimed wildlife photographer Christopher Rimmer, who is originally from South Africa, has spent much of his life shooting animals in the region - but always from behind the lens of a camera rather than the barrel of a gun.

Rimmer, who is currently based in Melbourne, posted the images of McGrath to his Facebook page last week, after they were sent to him by a friend. But he said the response online had been 'awful'.

'There's no greater crime in Australia than exposing the shortcomings of a sportsman', he told Daily Mail Australia.

In the photographs - taken on a hunting trip in 2008 - McGrath is pictured holding a gun and smiling with his kill, including an elephant, water buffalo and hyenas.

'A friend of mine sent the photographs over saying that he thought that it was a famous cricket player,' Rimmer said.

'I was very suspicious of the photographs at first and I put them into my big editing suite to check if they had been photo-shopped.' he continued.

After determining the images had not been altered, he decided to post them online.
'In the end I thought the public interest was better served by showing them,' he said.