"SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Photos of animal abuse and suffering posted on a federal wildlife specialist's Facebook and other Web pages are stirring anger among wildlife advocates."
"The pictures show two dogs savagely attacking a coyote in a leg-hold trap and the employee posing with the tattered carcass of a coyote. They also show other trapped animals - dead and alive.
"You can't look at this and associate it with wildlife management. This is cruelty and torture. This is wanton killing," said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense, an Oregon environmental group.
The employee, Jamie Olson, works as a trapper in Wyoming for an agency called Wildlife Services, which is already under fire from scientists and environmentalists for its extensive killing of predators to protect livestock and mule deer. Those practices were the subject of a Sacramento Bee investigative series earlier this year.
The Facebook photos began to circulate Tuesday on the Web after being spotted by an environmentalist. Other graphic photos were also found on Olson's Twitter account and two other websites.
Agency officials are investigating."
Tom Knudson reports for the Sacramento Bee November 1, 2012.
Advertisement 
