Thursday, July 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

TRACKING NAKED WOMEN: Real `hunts' rack up attention, ire

City, BLM look at venture as women's groups and paintball fans voice anger

A videotape of men hunting nude women in the barren Nevada desert with paintball guns was supposed to be a spoof of real hunting videos, according to the Las Vegas man who came up with the idea.

But when people found out about the Hunting for Bambi video, the spoof became real, he said. Men wanted to hunt naked women themselves, said Michael Burdick, who describes himself as the brainchild behind the enterprise that has garnered media attention from Las Vegas to Canada, Australia to Germany and, in the process, has attracted the ire of anti-violence groups.

"These hunts are absolutely real," said Burdick, who described himself as an avid hunter driven by an admittedly controversial idea. "We thought, 'Why not offer the hunts?'

"It just took off," he said.

City officials are looking into Burdick's venture and his company, Real Men Outdoor Productions Inc. The federal Bureau of Land Management also is eyeing the matter, and the nation's largest manufacturer of paintball guns has condemned Hunting for Bambi.

Burdick says his company charges up to $10,000 to stage "hunts" of nude women. The women -- mostly culled from the local adult entertainment industry -- are paid $2,500 if they do not get hit with a paintball and $1,000 if they do get hit, he said. About 20 such hunts have been sold so far, he said.

Burdick would not say where the hunts take place. Company spokesman Dave Krekelberg said they're held at locations throughout Southern Nevada, all on private land owned by investors in the company.

BLM spokesman Phil Guerrero said he doubted that such an endeavor could have received a permit to operate on federal land, which is required for any commercial enterprise. He said the federal government owns about 90 percent of the land in Clark County.

"We're sending our law enforcement people out to investigate the situation," he said.

City officials are interested in Burdick's business, too.

"If they're violating any city ordinances or business license regulations, we have to find out," said Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby.

Burdick and Lakana Campbell, whom he described as his fiancee, incorporated Real Men Outdoor Productions in April, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Campbell applied for a business license with the city of Las Vegas last month, and received it on June 20. The license allows the business to sell videos out of the home in northwest Las Vegas that they share.

The application states there will be "no porn videos" sold.

Burdick said the video and the hunts are not pornography. "It's not a porn video by any stretch of the word," he said.

In order to operate a home-based business in the city, an applicant must submit a home occupation permit. The permit for the video sales business stipulates, among other things, that only the occupants of the house can engage in the business activity, and that all related business must be conducted "exclusively" within the house.

Burdick said the women in the videos and the hunts are independent contractors. He said he regularly uses about a dozen such women. The idea came to him months ago, inspired by success stories such as "Girls Gone Wild" and the MTV show "Jackass," he said.

Selby said the city is investigating whether the business has violated any business license rules or any city ordinances.

If so, the City Council could revoke the license, he said. But if the hunts take place outside city limits, there may be little the city can do, he acknowledged.

A search of Clark County and North Las Vegas business license records showed no business license for Burdick or for Real Men Outdoor Productions in either jurisdiction.

Internet sites have questioned whether the hunts are merely staged events designed to garner free publicity for a video that sells for $19.99 plus $4.99 shipping and handling.

The urban legend-debunking Web site snopes.com, for example, says "the whole setup of the Hunting for Bambi site seems to be a deliberate attempt to shock and outrage, and it's all too easy for hoaxsters to fool reporters with demonstrations staged for their benefit."

It notes that a similar endeavor is apparently already operating. A Web site calling itself "Hunt Naked Women" claims to offer hunts in Costa Rica and Russia starting at $200.

The controversy began last week when KLAS-TV, Channel 8, ran a feature story on Burdick's operation. The story showed purported hunter George Evanthes stalking nude women in a desert location, shooting them with paintball guns.

The company's Web site claims hunters can purchase a hunt for $10,000, though Burdick said some hunts are cheaper.

Reached at his Bonanza Road residence on Wednesday, Evanthes said his hunt was "absolutely real."

"I wanted to do something exciting, something different," Evanthes said.

Evanthes, who said he owns a Las Vegas-based adult video production company called Tough Girl Productions, said he had no relationship with Burdick or anyone else from Hunting for Bambi before he paid the company $4,000 for his hour-long hunt. Though he lives in a rented, 400-square-foot condominium in an aging part of town, Evanthes said coming up with the money to buy the hunt was not difficult.

"Let's put it this way: Everything's relative," he said.

He said he sympathizes with women's groups that argue Hunting for Bambi promotes violence, but he denied that was his motivation.

"I was in it for the fun," Evanthes said. "Not for malicious intent. I'm not into that malicious stuff."

His video company produces female nude and topless boxing and wrestling videos, he said.

Susan Cooper, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center in Las Vegas, said the hunts and Burdick's video are appalling.

"It's just so disgusting," she said. "It promotes violence against women."

She said only three states have higher rates of violence against women than Nevada, and Burdick's endeavor can only make the problem worse.

"People have been contacting me from around the country saying, 'What are you doing about this?' " she said. "But I don't see a big uproar locally. That disturbs me."

But the Nevada Coalition Against Sexual Violence sent an "action item" e-mail to its 160 members statewide on Wednesday, said its director, Jodi Tyson. Members were encouraged to write protest letters to elected officials, and to Burdick at his home address.

"It's a human rights violation," Tyson said.

Paintball enthusiasts were outraged as well. Paintball guns can shoot projectiles at speeds approaching 200 mph and, according to the leading manufacturer of the products, "playing paintball nude may result in significant bodily injury."

"We condemn this irresponsible activity and do not endorse or condone the use of paintball products for such activities," Lynn Scott, President of Arkansas-based Brass Eagle Inc., said in a news release issued Tuesday.

Anyone shot with a paintball gun without wearing a protective mask risks "serious eye injury, including blindness," he said.

Burdick said that at first, women participating in the video and the hunts were not allowed to wear protective gear of any kind.

He said he cautioned hunters that they should not fire at the women's heads, but recently decided that a word of caution was not strong enough. In future "hunts," he said, women will be allowed to wear goggles, but nothing else.

Burdick said the largest response he has gotten to date has been from women who want to be "Bambis."

He showed a reporter several e-mails from women claiming they wanted to be hunted.

"I'm wondering if you're hiring Bambis," one e-mail began. "If you are, how can I apply."