Three businesspeople from Russia\u2019s republic of Sakha sparked a torrent of criticism on social media after posting photos and videos of a lion hunt in South Africa that critics said violated the traditional hunting values of their native region.<\/p>\n
The backlash began when Galina Yakovleva posted<\/a> a video on Instagram showing her husband, Alexei Yakovlev, shooting a resting lion at close range on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cI went with my husband to see with my own eyes how he hunts. It turns out it\u2019s hard for a woman to be there in that moment. I thought, \u2018It takes guts to go after a predator.\u2019 I\u2019m proud of my husband!\u201d Yakovleva said.<\/p>\n In a separate post, fellow Sakha businessman Yuri Bolshakov said<\/a>\u00a0he had applied for a hunting permit a year in advance, traveled to a private hunting reserve near the Botswana border, tracked a lioness for several days and shot her in a way that would not damage the animal\u2019s pelt.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a battle. It was a dialogue between two worlds, in which each remained true to itself,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Bolshakov said the hunt took place on a private game reserve.<\/p>\n It was not immediately clear whether the businesspeople were\u00a0taking part in \u201ccanned hunting<\/a>,\u201d a controversial practice in South Africa in which hunters, typically foreign tourists, pay to kill an animal that has been bred and raised in captivity.<\/p>\n