Hunting outfitter accidentally uses a photo of some famous wolf on his new website and gets threats from activists around the world. It’s one thing to use copyrighted material and it’s quite another to use copyrighted material of a damn wolf that bleeding hearts across the globe have adopted as one of their own. And that’s exactly what’s happened to one British Columbia outfitter after a recent website redesign.
While the outfitter has every right to promote wolf hunting, which is completely legal in British Columbia, it sounds as though his web developer simply made a bonehead mistake in selecting the image to promote such hunts. According to reports, the wolf that was depicted on the site captured the attention of millions and was even named by members of the Songhees First Nations from the small island on which it was found back in the 2010s (ya, that long ago).
As it turns out, the wolf known as Takaya, was the only one said to live on the small island, pulling on the heartstrings of wolf lovers everywhere. Tourists soon flooded the island in search of the “lone sea wolf whose spirit captured the world” which kicked off a series of events that eventually led to the wolf being moved to the mainland and then back to Vancouver Island as things quieted down.
That is until a hunter shot Takaya in March of 2020. At that point, the sh*tshow kicked back into gear and was slowing signs of quieting down again until some poor web developer unearthed the photo and used it to promote the very thing that ended the beloved wolf’s life.
According to reports, the owners of Terminus Mountain Outfitters, who used the photo ever so briefly on their site, had no idea about the history of the photo or the wolf and promptly removed them after the first request came in.
“Unfortunately, because of the media attention we are now getting emails that are threatening and quite angry when we had nothing to do with the live pictures chosen. We are a legal family-run business,” the owner said.
