“You Will Get Your Day in Hell”: Outfitter Receives Death Threats for Using Image of Famous Wolf

Craig Kiselbach had never heard of Takaya before last week. Now he knows all about British Columbia’s most famous wolf, but that knowledge has come along with an avalanche of angry, threatening messages.

“I’ve never had this before. I’ve been in this industry over 30 years, and outfitting for 17 years. I’ve never had this. All it took was this woman to make a story in her mind,” Kiselbach told MeatEater.

The owner ofTerminus Mountain Outfittersbecame public enemy number one of wolf advocates worldwide after a photographer named Cheryl Alexander called out his business onInstagram. Alexander was “researching trophy hunting in Canada” when she stumbled upon an image of Takaya on the Terminus Mountain website.

“I was shocked to discover that a trophy hunting guide outfitter is using my iconic photo of Takaya–who was so cruelly killed by a trophy hunter himself–on their website where they encourage people to come to BC and pay thousands of dollars to kill a wolf for a trophy,” she said.

Takaya was a male wolf who lived on a small group of islands off the coast of Victoria, B.C., between 2012 and 2020. The lone wolf became a local celebrity thanks to Alexander’s advocacy, and he was featured in a film and in books.

Takaya was killed by a hunter in 2020, and the British newspaper The Guardianpublished an articleclaiming that Canada “mourned” his passing.

“I didn’t pick the photos,” Kiselbach said. “There’s no ill intent here. No one is trying to rub anything in anyone’s face. Everybody just needs to take a breath.”

MeatEater spoke with Kiselbach’s web developer, who acknowledged that the outfitter had nothing to do with choosing the photo that was included on a page advertising wolf hunts. The developer believes one of his subcontractors used an image from Google Images, and MeatEater confirmed that searching “british columbia wolf” pulls up Takaya’s famous photo.

Kiselbach has since removed the entire wolf hunting web page from his site, which he says wasn’t a problem because he doesn’t sell standalone wolf hunts anyway.

“I don’t even sell wolf hunts. My hunters carry a wolf tag in case they’re sheep hunting or moose hunting. I don’t even need them,” he said.

Death Threats

None of these actions were enough to stop what happened next. Alexander’s Instagram post went viral, and it didn’t take long for localnews outletsto cover the story. Over the weekend,The Guardianpicked it up as well, and Kiselbach tells MeatEater the hate mail has only increased.

“I can’t believe how upset people are for something that’s legal,” he said. “People just started firing these erratic, threatening messages. I’m getting hate mail all the time now.”

Kiselbach sent MeatEater dozens of messages he received through his website’s contact form. One message from “Daisy Duke” encouraged Kiselbach and his team to “hunt each other instead and leave a better world for the rest of us.”

Another, from someone named Rob Gaisford, said Kiselbach’s business model is “absolutely shameful and disgusting” because it’s based on “killing defenseless creatures.”

The messages get even more unhinged from there.

“You f%$king bastards using Takaya's photo to Trophy Hunt,” wrote someone named Heather Freeborn. “The year of the hunt should be for all of you to be shot who support this Trophy Hunting. You f%$king cowards using bait and other means to make money internationally hunting our wildlife. You will be watched and exposed.”

Another from someone named Beth Bourne called for Kiselbach’s “head on the photos as a trophy.”

“You will get your day in hell when the gun is pointed at you and you whimper. F$%king c$%ts who have nothing better to do in life than kill,” she concluded.

(We could go on, but you get the idea.)

Kiselbach wishes Alexander had reached out to him to have the photo taken down before going public. He worries about how this negative press will impact his business, and he doesn’t want his children harassed.

“Cheryl Alexander has never contacted me. She’s never emailed me. If I was worried about copyright, I’d send a cease and desist letter,” he said.

Kiselbach understands why Alexander would feel hurt seeing a photo of a wolf she spent years following. But he reiterated that he didn’t use her photo on purpose.

“I feel for her. It’s terrible. But I didn’t shoot Takaya, and I sure as hell didn’t know it was going on my page,” he said. “Alexander made it sound like I put it there on purpose to slap her in the face. You’re really assuming everybody knows who this wolf is.”

For her part, Alexander has been working to use the mistake to push for a wolf hunting ban in B.C.

“Unlike killing pets like cats and dogs, killing wild animals for fun isn't an illegal criminal action in Canada - but it should be!” she wrote in her viral Instagram post. “People will continue to kill for trophies unless the laws and government regulations change.”

Wolf hunting is legal in B.C., and the province boasts an estimated 8,500 wolves. There are so many wolves, in fact, that both the provincial government and First Nations tribes have been working to reduce the wolf population in an effort to save ungulate herds, a strategy that hasshown promise.

“Biologists are actively trying to shoot wolves and manage them in quite a few areas,” Kiselbach said. “Even First Nations are trying to get predator control because it’s so hard to manage predators. I’m not a guy who says we need to kill all the wolves. We just need to manage them.”

Feature image via iStock is not the now-famous wolf known as “Takaya.”

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