A
photo now gone viral on the Internet of a smiling man in front of a dying black wolf caught in a foothold trap surrounded by blood-soaked snow has fueled a maelstrom of emotional debate about wolf reintroduction. The photo was originally posted on
Trapperman.com by U.S. Forest Service employee Josh Bransford, who had trapped the animal in northern Idaho and posed for the photo shoot. The website described how a passersby had taken gun shots at the wolf from a nearby road and injured the animal. An anti-trapping organization,
Footloose Montana, posted the photo on its Web site to demonstrate the cruelty inherent in trapping and received more than 1,000 comments in the first few days. Footloose Montana soon received an emailed death threat: “I would like to donate [sic] a gun to your childs [sic] head to make sure you can watch it die slowly so I can have my picture taken with it’s [sic] bleeding dying screaming for mercy body.” It went on to threaten the lives of the staff. Footloose Montana removed the photo but it had already become widely circulated around the Internet on sites on both sides of the debate...
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2 comments:
Assuming the photo is real, I can't imaging why anyone would want to appear in such a photo. No matter where you come down on the wolf reintroduction, not dispatching the wolf immediately to end its suffering is just plain cruel. Why prolong the animals agony for the sake of a self-promoting photograph? I know people who run trap lines in Alaska. I can't imagine them doing this, out of respect to the animal. Isn't that just common decency?
I do think that people are becoming more
Anonymous: I couldn't agree with you more...who's acting like an animal in this photo? Hint: It's not the hurting wolf!
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