Archery competitor and hunting enthusiast Jen Cordaro is the latest target in an effort by anti-hunters to bully female outdoorspeople into sidelining their pastime.
Reports indicate Cordaro’s trophy pictures on Facebook prompted animal rights activists to post comments calling her a murderer and threatening to “make sure she feels the same pain and cruelty she dished out.”
Cordaro is the latest in a series of mostly female hunters who have been targeted online by animal rights activists, including Kendall Jones, Melissa Bachman and Colorado hunter Charisa Argys. In each case the hunters were faced with a strong backlash from anti-hunters who peppered the Internet with vicious comments after each posted pictures of their kills.
Cordaro’s opponents have also posted an online petition on Change.org titled “Stop Jen ‘The Archer’ Cordero from teaching children to become animal murderers! Make hunting illegal in California (and everywhere),” which has so far garnered a tepid 2,600 signatures as of February 3.
Dusti Lee, who launched the petition to stop Cordaro’s youth hunting initiative, says the San Diego native is training the next generation of killers.
“She brainwashes children into believing that murdering animals is a positive activity in the world and then helps brag about their kills by turning to social media for the accolades of trophy photos,” Lee wrote.
Despite the controversy, Cordaro remains upbeat, and hopes even the negative publicity helps her mission to bring more kids into the shooting sports.
“It’s actually done more help than harm, but let’s just hope the threats don’t come to fruition,” Cordaro said in an interview with KFMB radio, adding that she sees no research that ties kids who hunt to violent behavior.
Through all the negativity, Cordaro seems to see rays of sunshine. Her #BringAKidHunting program remains her focus, and she continues to post videos and photos to her “Jen the Archer” page and has no plans to tuck tail and run. She believes in her program and plans to see it through.
Perhaps the biggest twist in this new saga is the fact that Cordaro used to be a vegetarian, but claims the local, sustainable food movement got her interested in harvesting her own meat.
“Hunting, in my opinion, is the most responsible way to acquire a meal,” Cordaro told XETV in a recent interview.
