Food Critic Murders Baboon: Needed Fodder for His Column?!

I don’t know much about the world of London restaurant critics, but it seems to be the ultimate in dehumanizing professions. In his London Sunday Times column this week, food critic AA Gill casually describes how he shot a wild baboon while on vacation in Africa….to see what it would feel like.

To his credit (!), Gill doesn’t try to sugar coat his action. He describes his target, a huge baboon: “…picking his fingernails, a hairy geezer sitting in the sun with his shirt off. I took him just below the armpit. He slumped and slid sideways. I’m told they can be tricky to shoot: they run up trees, hang on for grim life. They die hard, baboons. But not this one. A soft-nosed .357 blew his lungs out. We paced the ground. The air was filled with a furious keening of his tribe. Two hundred and fifty yards. Not a bad shot.”

Oh, there’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Gill. It was a very bad shot indeed.

While admitting there was no good excuse for his action, he nonetheless tries to explain: “I noticed that, when it was alive, I thought about the baboon as a thing. Now he’s dead, I’m posthumously anthropomorphising him, and that was one of the reasons I killed. I wanted to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone, a stranger.”

Stop. Breathe. I note my first reaction: Excruciating execution for this guy, preferably slowly bleeding to death in front of his buddies, sounds like a good idea. Exhale. Pause. Next reaction: What the heck was he thinking? What sick person would find it perfectly acceptable to write about his urge to explore killing primates in a food column? Is he so disengaged from life and his place in it that he thinks this is witty? Educational? Cool?

After describing the death throes of the baboon, Gill goes on to review a recently-opened London restaurant called Le Luxe, making laser sharp observations about the frogs legs and the “pork cheeks that were suffering from first-night nerves.” One can only assume that Mr. Gill wasn’t getting his ego stoked enough by being the food critic for a prestigious newspaper. No, he had to go blow away a wild creature who was doing him no harm and then write about it in the same tone that he uses to analyze a cheese course. Is he so sophisticated, so detached from reality, that he needed to kill in order to feel alive?

I’m not sure there’s a Care2 petition for this one: “Ban heartless idiots with egos the size of Range Rovers now.” just doesn’t quite express the fury, pain and heartbreak of reading this. For once, I am stunned into inaction. As a species, we’ve got a long, long way to go. And the creatures with whom we share this earth will have to add “London Times restaurant critics” to the list of evils that human beings have created to their and our detriment.

Read more: animal welfare, baboon, free speech, hunting

quick poll

vote now!

Loading poll...

no!
leaning no
leaning yes
yes!

no!
leaning no
leaning yes
yes!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Robert B.

10:35AM PDT on Oct 31, 2011

This man is sick inside. I would never read anything he writes. What a vile psychopath! One would have to be a real Cretin to want to shoot another animal, just because you want to know what it feels like! It should feel like shit. If it feels in anyway good, you need professional mental care.

send a green star

stella b.

12:25AM PDT on Oct 31, 2011

A real psycho!

Cathy N.

12:16AM PDT on Oct 31, 2011

~This was a very sad story!~This man is ruining our planet just by breathing!!~

Patti B.

4:32PM PDT on Jul 11, 2011

What's REALLY scary is that he said he wanted to know what it felt like to kill a human being, and killing the baboon was a little like that. What a sicko.

colleen p.

4:38AM PDT on Jul 2, 2011

well, I can agree on this one , tat the guy is out of wack.
I guess darkness calls to everyone.

he should of eaten it.

Melody A.

1:58PM PST on Dec 26, 2010

Sad this man is a coward he cant kill the bad inside him he needs to take a life did he even realise that the life he shot also had a family? sad he is a part of the media we read he needs to be sacked and left on a hill top ..with no life around. its only then would he realise the importance of living and let live...

Rosemarie P.

8:40PM PST on Nov 15, 2009

I believe in GOD. - All those pieces of garbage that abuse animals, abduct & molest & kill innocent children and pimps should all have a real special place reserved in HELL !!
They all belong to the same club. - MONSTERS - Wish we could go back to public executions with stoning, firing squad and hanging.

Patricia C.

12:32PM PST on Nov 13, 2009

I am literally sickened by this "man's" words, and what he did; I consider it murder. Sadly, I know this kind of thing goes on all the time. Why is this legal???!!!

JK B.

7:11AM PST on Nov 11, 2009

It's jerks like this, that should have that same pain inflected on them. If he makes this bad of a choice why would I trust his judgment in food? Critic without a clue I'd say. I hope it comes back to haunt him 10 fold.

mary f.

1:39AM PST on Nov 4, 2009

what a useless jerk