Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter<\/p>\n
Get the hottest outdoor news\u2014plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite.<\/p>\n
Former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler is taking heat after posting Instagram photos of himself with a sable antelope he killed on a recent South African hunt. The 12-season pro shared the image with a simple caption: \u201cKicked off the Africa hunt with a beauty. Sable down.\u201d Now he\u2019s in the crosshairs of online outrage, which is being fueled by misinformation online and in the mainstream media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backlash came fast. Armchair critics lit up Cutler\u2019s feed with the usual anti-hunting outrage, calling the hunt \u201ccruelty dressed up as sport\u201d and accusing him of shooting a defenseless animal that \u201chad zero idea he was a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty sad that you are proud to have taken down this beautiful animal. Paying big bucks to have someone find you a large, beautiful animal that you can shoot at close range is not hunting,\u201d wrote one commenter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, a lot of the hate has been fueled by inaccurate information circulating online and in some mainstream media outlets which have accused Cutler of killing an endangered species. PennLive<\/a> went so far as to call the animal \u201ccritically endangered.\u201d But the antelope he shot in South Africa is actually a common sable<\/a>, which is not endangered and is listed as a species of Least Concern by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature<\/a>. It was not, as some have claimed, a giant sable<\/a>. This rare subspecies is critically endangered, but it can only be found in a small section of central Angola<\/a>, which doesn\u2019t even border South Africa.<\/p>\n Hunts like Cutler\u2019s are a key part of conservation funding in many African countries. The hunting industry there generates millions of dollars<\/a> each year, with large portions of that money going toward habitat preservation and anti-poaching efforts<\/a>. Cutler\u2019s hunt, no matter how controversial, helped fund the very system that supports the species he hunted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read Next: Why Hunting Africa Has Nothing To Do With Trophy Hunting<\/a><\/p>\n But none of that matters in the court of social media, where clever digs and funny quips tend to carry more weight than facts.\u00a0Cutler hasn\u2019t apologized or backed down. If anything, he doubled down \u2014 posting more photos and a video<\/a> from the hunt.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother great day,\u201d Cutler wrote in the caption.<\/p>\n \t