‘Hunting for Bambi’ Turns Out To Be Hoax

Brass Eagle Inc. of Bentonville, the world’s largest manufacturer of paintball guns and other extreme sports products, warned consumers on July 15 that playing paintball in the nude “may result in significant bodily injury.”

The company made the statement in response to a game allegedly being played in the desert near Las Vegas that involves “shooting paintballs at women who are wearing only tennis shoes without proper protective gear and clothing.” The game, called “Hunting for Bambi,” was featured July 10 on KLAS-TV, Channel 8, in Las Vegas.

But the game’s promoter, Michael Burdick, later admitted that the game was a hoax used to sell video tapes, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said in a July 24 press conference.

Burdick found himself in the crosshairs of women’s groups after he told a Las Vegas TV station reported that he was selling reservations to men willing to pay $5,000 to $10,000 to hunt naked women with paintball guns.

Las Vegas officials investigated and found that the purported safaris were nothing but a hoax to promote the “Hunting for Bambi” videos that Burdick sells. The videos show nude women being hunted by men.

The footage in the videos “was all staged,” Goodman said. “There were actors and actresses and there wasn’t even the real shooting of paint balls.”

Brass Eagle’s earnings for 2003 are expected to range from $98 million to $105 million, the company said in May.