Heena Sidhu in anti-hunting PETA campaign

Mumbai: Ace India shooter Heena Sidhu has teamed up with PETA India for a brand-new ad campaign that shows her holding her pistol and taking a self-portrait with her phone below the words "Shoot Selfies, Not Animals: Say No to Hunting".

The first Indian pistol shooter to be ranked number one in the world, Sidhu, in an exclusive video interview, also talked on the cruelty of hunting animals after her tie-up with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). "Hunting is the epitome of cruelty towards the animals, and we should take every measure to stop hunting. Animals like tigers, leopards, rhinos and elephants have been shot and hunted and poached for their skins and their horns. "If anybody spots someone hunting an animal, the first thing to do would be to report them to the police to take every measure possible to stop them from hunting," said Sidhu, who is a part of the Indian shooting contingent for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The ad was shot by ace photographer Gaurav Sawn with hair and make-up by Rohini Foregard. The Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, prohibits hunting wild animals, but some people still shoot them under the guise of "sport" or to sell the skin, bones, claws, meat, horns and tusks of tigers, rhinoceroses, elephants and other animals on the black market. Hunters may also kill animals outside India. Research shows that 60 per cent of animals who are shot flee into the woods to die slowly and painfully from blood loss, gangrene, dehydration or starvation. Mother animals who are killed leave behind helpless orphaned babies, who starve to death or are eaten by predators.