UPDATE: Wild TV posts video to Twitter in response to social media backlash over Steve Ecklund’s cougar kill
A Canadian host for the outdoor TV show The Edge continues to face attacks from animal rights activists on social media after posting photos of himself with a massive cougar he killed in northern Alberta earlier this month.
“What an unreal ending to a fun-filled season,” Steve Ecklund wrote in a Dec. 3 post that showed him grinning while holding the bleeding cat.
The photo prompted hundreds of replies.
“Northern Alberta lion with BIG CAT ADVENTURES Brian and Claudette Chorney… can’t thank you guys enough for the eye opener into your world of houndsmen,” Ecklund added.
Ecklund posted a number of photos of him holding the cougar and one of him making a meal with the meat.
“I hope you drop dead soon,” wrote Claudia Edler Kazachinsky.
“Pathetic coward,” wrote Claire Bruce.
‘I’m not gonna threaten you… I just feel sorry for you,” wrote Rebekah Mayhew. “Sorry that you feel no joy and can only do so at the expense of another creature losing its life. Killing should never be an adrenaline rush… unless you are a sociopath.”
However, many people also congratulated Ecklund for killing the cougar.
“Nice cat Steve,” wrote James Gopffarth.
“Awesome job Steve, congrats on a fine cat!!! Will look great on the wall!!” wrote Jason Bowley.
Cougar hunting is legal in Alberta from Sept. 1 to the end of February for residents, and from Dec. 1 to the end of February for non-residents.
Ecklund’s posts garnered even more attention after several media outlets in the U.K. posted stories about the cougar kill.
Ecklund did not appear to be concerned by the online criticism in a Facebook post he wrote on Dec. 4.
“If you can guess what post has 900 likes, 450 comments, 13 confirmed death threats, 754 swear words and one very happy hunter in it… I will enter your name into the draw for the new cougar cook book, filled with mouth-watering recipes for your next mountain lion hunt,” Ecklund wrote, followed with a pair of laughing emojis.
On Wednesday night, Laureen Harper, the wife of former prime minister Stephen Harper, weighed in on the photos as well.
“What a creep,” Harper tweeted on her Twitter account. “Chasing a cougar with dogs until they are exhausted then shooting a scared, cornered and tired animal. Must be compensating for something, small penis probably.”
Harper then followed up with a tweet that said she comes from a hunting and fishing family from that “learned to use every part of an animal. Killing for fun makes me sick.”
Ecklund’s TV show airs on the Edmonton-based specialty channel Wild TV.
The show’s website says Ecklund was born into a hunting family and that he grew up in northern Ontario. It adds “the thrill of the hunt has been a lifelong obsession since a very early age” for Ecklund.
The site also says he has earned an “unparalleled reputation as a fair-chase hunter.”
Fair chase is defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, which calls itself the oldest wildlife conservation organization in North America, as “the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.”
Global News has reached out to Ecklund and Wild TV for comment.
-With files from The Canadian Press
View Ecklund’s photos that are generating controversy on social media below:
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