Shane Richards before taking his dogs to their death, photo courtesy Facebook

A man in the region near Headquarters, Idaho, lost his dogs to hungry wolves after sending them after a bear he was attempting to kill on September 19th.  Shane Richards sent his dogs to subdue a bear he wanted to kill for his own pleasure on that sad day.  The dogs were found in the remote area of Deadhorse Mountain, in varying states after nearly 15-20 minutes had passed before Mr. Richards was able to get to the awful scene.  In those 15-20 minutes, one dog named Ruby had been nearly completely devoured, another, Candy had been eaten to the point of death, and a third dog, Josey was taken to a veterinarian, yet died of its wounds.  Mr. Richards found it important enough to spend the time to take these awful photos of his dogs while poor Josey was dying, and he later distributed these photos publicly on Facebook, on flyers in his local town, and on hunting blogs skinnymoose.com and biggamehoundsmen.com, as well as numerous other sites where he publicly used these photos to further his anti-wolf agenda.

Shane Richards was out having a good time with his dogs pretending to be a tough guy with a gun.  He really wanted to kill a bear that day.  Mr. Richards was using his dogs to try to track and wear down this bear so he could show up later with his gun and kill it, when unfortunately for his dogs, who could have been at the safety of his home, they were killed by wolves in the wilderness Shane was exploring.  A truly tragic story that this man could at least use to learn to have a little more respect for those whom he calls his “family members,” and understand the need for these beautiful creatures roaming our world, Shane instead blames everyone he can think of but himself for the death of his dogs.  Equally disturbing is that out of over 200 responses this man received to the rant he posted on his Facebook page, not one person was willing to tell Shane he got what he deserved, be a man and learn from this incident, using animals as tools for killing is more than just dangerous for the animals, it can be very deadly.

Now Shane Richards and some other people, a number of his friends, want to go kill some wolves for payback.  Vegan Ranger would like to know when Shane Richards’ thirst for blood will end.

A few of Mr. Richards supporters had the following to say:

Taunee Munson Pruitt:  Kill em all you see

Amanda Stowe Neal:  …$30 a tag and you can get 3 a year

Cheri Thomas:  I’d flat shoot em, bury em and let that be that.

Kristie Ryals:  I do not think there should be a tag limit on these beasts.

Vegan Ranger’s staff actually received death threats from a number of Shane Richards’ supporters as well as threats to shut down veganranger.com, and threats of legal action for telling lies and copyright infringement.  Northern Idaho is obviously filled with nut jobs who thrive on killing, it seems a number of people there have acquired mad elk or deer disease, affecting their judgement.  Sad brainwashing is passed on from one generation to the next where parents teach their young that killing animals is fun and necessary.  Hopefully someday this cycle can be broken.

Photos of Candy and Ruby courtesy of the photo-sharing service, Photobucket.com