NBC Sports Network host Tony Makris defended his controversial killing of an elephant on an NRA-sponsored hunting show during the September 26 edition of NRA News by claiming that opponents of elephant hunting have a philosophy similar to Hitler's.

Makris has faced widespread criticism since he shot and killed an elephant on the September 22 episode of Under Wild Skies on NBC Sports, which also showed him celebrating the kill with Champagne. A petition calling for the cancellation of Under Wild Skies, which Makris hosts, currently has more than 47,000 signatures. 

Makris has longstanding ties to the NRA. According to the Los Angeles Times, “he helped install Charlton Heston as president” of the NRA in 1998. Makris has also been previously identified as an employee of Ackerman McQueen, an ad agency employed by the NRA for decades that was responsible for a controversial ad that politicized security measures that protect the president's children.

On the NRA News show Cam & Company, Makris offered a number of rationales for shooting the elephant, including suggesting that people who oppose elephant hunting but accept other forms of hunting are practicing “animal racism.” He added that he would respond to someone who said elephants should not be hunted because of their size, scarcity or intelligence by saying, “Hitler would have said the same thing.”

MAKRIS: The nice ones will come up and go, you shoot elephant? Why? And I said well, the short answer is because hungry people eat them and because I'm a hunter. You know, I'm not an elephant hunter. I'm a hunter. I hunt all things. And they go, well nobody should shoot an elephant. I said, why? And they go they're so big and kind and gentle and smart and I said, okay, let me ask you a question. Should I be able to shoot birds? Well, I guess that's okay. Ducks? Yeah. Pigeons? Oh, they're flying rats, okay. Rabbits? Well rabbits are cute. But yea. Squirrels? That's nothing but a rat with a tail -- with a fuzzy tail. And I said, well deer eat all my mother's roses in Long Island and I go-- so I can shoot all of those, but not an elephant? No. Do you realize that if you subscribe to that philosophy you are committing a very unique form of animal racism?

CAM EDWARDS, HOST: [laughter]

MAKRIS: And now they're shocked. And they said but they're so big and special and they're smarter. And I went, you know, Hitler would have said the same thing.