Actor Ricky Gervais posted a tweet showing a picture of Utah based hunter, Rebecca Francis, posing beside a dead giraffe. He asks Francis, “What must’ve happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling?”

The 41-year-old mother of eight, is what some are calling a “celebrity huntress”, who is most known for winning the Extreme Huntress contest and co-hosting NBC Sports’ Eye of the Hunter. She has hunted everything from black bears to huge Alaskan moose.

The picture, which Francis originally posted to her website in 2010, has attracted a lot of negative posts on social media since Gervais posted it, including threats against Francis’ life and the safety of her family. Despite the threats, Francis continues to defend her actions.

“When I was in Africa five years ago, I was of the mindset that I would never shoot a giraffe. I was approached toward the end of my hunt with a unique circumstance,” Francis defended in an exclusive statement to HuntingLife.com. “They showed me this beautiful old bull giraffe that was wandering all alone. He had been kicked out of the herd by a younger and stronger bull. He was past his breeding years and very close to death. They asked me if I would preserve this giraffe by providing all the locals with food and other means of survival.”

“He was inevitably going to die soon and he could either be wasted or utilized by the local people. I chose to honor his life by providing others with his uses and I do not regret it for one second. Once he was down there were people waiting to take his meat. They also took his tail to make jewelry, his bones to make other things, and did not waste a single part of him,” she said. “I am grateful to be a part of something so good.”