A ringleader in a global monkey torture network exposed by the BBC has been charged by US federal prosecutors.
Michael Macartney, 50, who went by the alias “Torture King”, was charged in Virginia with conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos.
Mr Macartney was one of three key distributors identified by the BBC Eye team during a year-long investigation into sadistic monkey torture groups.
Two women have also been charged in the UK following the investigation.
Warning: This article contains disturbing content
Mr Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who previously spent time in prison, ran several chat groups for monkey torture enthusiasts from around the world on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
“Reintroducing predators” I always find this equally ridiculous. Like first off. Why? In your weird value world, why does it matter if a hunter or a wolf kills the animal? Who does it make it better for? Certainly not the deer or the deer population, because wolves are notoriously bad at doing statistical analysis that the felling amounts are based on. Even if the wolves had their own researchers, they probably wouldn’t understand “felling quotas”, would they?
Okay, humour me: if you were sentenced to death, which of the following would you choose?
Being shot at some random time you won’t even be aware about (in this hypothetical you agree to the execution and then get mindwiped so you won’t know it’s coming), with a single bullet that kills you instantly
A pack of wolves runs after you and tears you to shreds and eats you while you’re alive.
Personally, I’m pretty sure that option number 2 is closer to torture than option number one.
"Most of Europe has no wild wolves. Do you think those areas don’t have deer browsing them? Because they do, and those populations have to be controlled, and have been, by people, for centuries.
“They don’t fear the cameraman and behave like very smart and inpendendent dogs”
No, they don’t. They do not do that. Sigh. This is frustratingly naive of you. Betrays a deep lack of understanding of the difference between wolves and dogs, and even if they behaved like “smart and independent dogs”, you’d actually allow them in population centres in Europe, and all because you feel like it’s immoral that the deer are being shot instead of violently mauled to death?
Wolves eat too many deers, become hungry and die, then there are more deers, wolves have more food, there are more wolves.
I’m talking about human effect on nature, you’re talking about cruelty.
Cmon, so serious. I just like wolves.
Anyway, a wolf usually won’t attack humans. If it’s hungry and irritated - yeah.
I don’t think it’s immoral, I just think it’s ideologically dirtier for humans to perform the function of wolves.
Why did you skip the part where I ask how and who is it better for if there are wolves instead of hunters?
What sort of mental knot have you tied yourself into? Do you not have empathy? We’re talking about the experience of dying. Which is more cruel to inflict on ANY creature; being shot dead with a single shot without you even realising it, or being torn to bits by wolves?
You have no idea how wolves behave, which is evident from your ridiculously naive take: >Wolves eat too many deers, become hungry and die, then there are more deers, wolves have more food, there are more wolves.
That’s just, incredibly ignorant. The science of populations studies in animals is incredibly complex, and the wolves won’t care about the ecology of the area where they’re hunting. They could hunt a deer population out and then move to another area. These are known as wolf packs and there’s a reason humans have historically avoided living in an area with a large, HUNGRY pack of wolves. Can you guess what it is?
Or do you think that when the deer of a certain area are finished, the wolves will just stay there and starve to death instead of eating other things?
Again, you don’t understand how wolves behave. They don’t behave like they do in your animu-shows or documents from tame wolves. If you saw a pack of wolves while standing on a field, and they saw you and happened to be somewhat close, and you started running, there’s a pretty good propability they’d start chasing you down and tearing you to pieces. If you just stand your ground though, not a high chance. Reading this, you’ll disagree, even though you have no basis to, and then you’ll wonder why I even wrote that, and then you’ll open this and learn about what coursing predators are.
They aren’t aggressive to people, but to say that “a wolf won’t usually attack humans” is clearly indicative you don’t think they’re dangerous. So you would literally unleash packs of coursing predators to central European areas, and think it would somehow be morally and otherwise better than hunting. And you can’t even say why it’s better to be torn to bits by canine teeth than it is to be shot, but you are saying it is better.
Same as with dogs.
Should have left me a choice, LOL.
Wolves aren’t dogs just like a kitty-cat isn’t a lion. There’s fundamentally different behaviours ingrained within them. If you had hounds and made someone run away from you, yeah, they would catch that person up, but unlike wolves, they wouldn’t necssarily tear it to pieces (unless commanded), because those dogs have been conditioned for thousands and thousands of years by humans, changing their very nature. Canis familiaris has 5-10 times better ability to digest starch than canis lupus, although I don’t expect you to understand the implication.
So explain to me how it is more moral to cause more suffering to animals by making them die by being ripped to shreds instead of being shot or not dying at all? Because that is causing the deer more suffering.
Tell me, why do you think the wolves will “starve and die” once the deers are eaten, instead of roaming to population centers and causing problems for people? They’re just so polite, that they think “no we don’t want to disturb the people, we’ll rather just die” (because that’s how you like to think of wolves as, and you clearly disregard any reality)? Or is it that you think wolves physically can’t eat anything other than deer? Because they wouldn’t attack people, right? Hungry wolf packs in central europe wouldn’t do that, why would they, wolves are always just looking for scratchies obviously.
You might like for wolves to be cutesy little puppies that you can give hugs to. They’re not. I’ve been into wolves since I was a kid, but I’m not delusional, unlike some people.
I meant - same as with groups of homeless dogs.
There the same species FFS.
Not significantly. Mostly dogs behave differently because they are trained and don’t when they are not. Of course a smaller and weaker dog will behave differently.
They totally would if they’re hungry homeless dogs.
Canis lupus familiaris from wild kinds of canis lupus, you mean? They are the same species.
You are right, I don’t understand your implication, but races of homo sapiens also have such differences with lactose and chitin and maybe something else.
It rids us of moral ambiguity in evaluating people who hunt for fun, for example. Yep, it is more painful for the deer, but we won’t live in the same society with that deer and we will with the hunter.
(It’s not an attack, just one variant of answering your question.)
I don’t, they will, unless they live behind a fence. And if there are protected forested areas, putting that fence there seems to not be such a bad idea.
You just seem to imagine this to be something very scary.
One brown bear is scarier than a pack of wolves.
Eh, no, in that stage I liked tigers and lions and snow leopards more, ha-ha.
They are cutesy little puppies. Naturally with their own instincts, and they are carnivores, and pack animals, and so on.
They’re* and no, they’re not.
A wolf is a wolf. A dog is dog. They are separate species, every definitively. And no, being able to have wolf/dog hybrids doesn’t mean they’re the same species, even though I’m sure you think that’s how species are defined.
Canis familiaris is a dog. A canis lupus is a wolf, not a dog.
This has been my point the whole time; you think wild wolves are the same as pet dogs, and refuse to accept reality.
Typing errors happen.
Yes, they are. Why are you arguing with something which can be checked instantaneously?
There’s no such thing as canis familiaris, it’s called canis lupus familiaris, familiaris is subspecies.
Other subspecies are various wolves.
By classification they literally are.
Also I have a big dog, a person lives in the same building who has a big dog which is in fact such a hybrid (or maybe just a wolf). They, eh, have more experience than most dog owners, but the difference between a dog and a wolf is not qualitative.
Also could you stop with that tone? You don’t seem smart arguing truisms if that’s not clear.
Most ironic thing I’ve read in weeks.
Yes, some consider it a subspecies of the wolf, and it is named as such, but it is not the same species and you won’t find anyone credible to argue they are.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700398
Dogs are literally hypersociable canids that can eat starch (and the genes for that function 28x better than in gray wolves, to amend the earlier 5-10x estimate. and no, being able to digest starch is nowhere near the same as being sensitive to lactose in adulthood).
They literally aren’t.
They share a common ancestor. That’s it. A very close common ancestor, but both of which they evolved from. Saying they’re the same species is like saying Neanderthals are the same species as homo sapiens sapiens. I wrote sapiens twice, because you seem to try to be anal with linnaean nomenclature, thinking it’ll compensate for your overt ignorance on the subject. It doesn’t. Linnaean taxonomy isn’t always prescriptive, as names can be given before we have a complete understanding of something. Yes, it is “canis lupus familiaris”, but the animal the dog evolved from is properly “canis lupus” and the gray wolf we refer to as “canis lupus” is actually a subspecies of canis lupus, yet to be distinctly named.
Why are you arguing with something which can be checked instantaneously?
https://biologyofbehavior.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/are-dogs-and-wolves-the-same-species/
And again, you propose to introduce packs of wolves into POPULATION CENTERS, saying it’s gonna be better for everything and everyone and most of all, more moral. That ignores the fact that unlike you think, they aren’t hypersociable, and unlike you think, they won’t limit themselves to deer and then die off. Dogs work better together than dogs do, and they’re highly intelligent. Why on Earth would you make an inane argument such as “wolves eat deer out, wolves die of hunger”, which first of all, supposes that the wolves get rid of the entire population of deer, which wouldn’t be healthy (which is why it’s called “deer population management”, not “deer extermination”), and secondly that wolves wouldn’t attempt to find a secondary source of food or that an entire population of deer didn’t grow the numbers of wolf packs and that wolf packs are never dangerous to people.
You must have lead such a sheltered life. Too bad, I bet you could understand a bit of what I’m saying if that weren’t so. I’m against hunting wolves, and single wolves aren’t a threat to people. But large wolf packs are. It’d be beyond childish to pretend they’re like a litter of puppies, like you’re doing. It’s beyond ridiculous.
This is what you’re proposing to do in Central-European population centres, because you personally feel icky thinking about the fact that death is a natural part of life.
You’re even a self-proclaimed meat-eater. I don’t eat industrially farmed meat. I’m a flexitarian, but I have morals. You don’t. You stuff your face with burgers without thinking a second about the what the cow went through to get that beef. Yet you DARE criticise the morality of people who actually care for nature and conserve it’s ecology?
It isn’t.
That’s like saying a group of feral cats is “the same” as a pride of lions. It’s. Just. Not. The. Same. I don’t think you understand how large wolves are compared to dogs. I mean… you clearly don’t.
You just don’t understand the difference. You pretend wolves are dogs. They’re not. I don’t think you’d consider a tiger as safe as a housecat, even if the tiger was fed, would you? Why not? “They’re the exact same!”
So you think it’s more moral for you to unleash dangerous wild beasts into population centers than it is to hunt animals in those population centers? What the fuck are you smoking, because I want some too. You think you’re somehow absolved of responsibility of killing someone if you set an animal on them? What the fuck is the matter with you? Why is alright for the deer to die scared, panicking, alone, hobbling on one leg, while being eaten alive, but it’s not right for the deer to die completely unaware of impeding death? Why do you pretend dying in panic and blood gurgles is more moral than being executed cleanly?
You don’t have any idea how prevalent deer are, because you’re so far removed from nature and hunting that you don’t understand what population control actually entails. Deer are commonplace in POPULATION CENTERS. You need wolves in the places where those deer are that you’re supposing that they would hunt. So you are proposing that popping uncontrollable populations of apex predators into population centers — completely ignoring the fact that they haven’t lived here in thousands of years and don’t belong here and humans are the natural apex predators the ecology is used to — and think they will control the population in a way that will be better for everything in that environment?
You’re being ridiculous.
I have no fear of wolves, because I’ve actually hung out with some. I’m just not delusional or poorly educated, so I understand the reality, which is that “reintroducing apex predators” is about as realistic as thinking storks bring babies. Why do you pretend to understand wolves when you’ve demonstrated ignorance about their behaviour, size, biology and a million other things?
Deer have to be hunted and there’s NOTHING immoral about hunting deer for population control just because you’re afraid of the most natural thing there is; death.
No, I am talking about dogs and wolves, and this you’ve made up.
A group of maine coons gone feral compared to a group of forest cats may be a better comparison, if cats are what you are thinking about.
Anyway, I’m not advocating for keeping wolves as pets. Just for limited restoration of ecosystems including them.
I don’t think you understand there are, first of all, different subspecies of wolves, which makes this point not worth arguing really.
I don’t. You seem to really like arguing with yourself.
Some day someone may open your eyes to the fact that every part of the world is different.
No, I don’t. You are imagining things where you like them and then complain that what I say doesn’t fit. It won’t and it shouldn’t.
I mean, I didn’t have a chance to demonstrate anything between your walls of text consisting of you imagining what others think and condemning that as if anybody could care.
I also don’t think I’m more ignorant than you on frankly anything.
So? This doesn’t have anything to do with anything I’ve said.
“Limited restoration of ecosystems including them”
No, you aren’t. You’re literally proposing that we use wolves for deer population management in places where population management is needed. That’s been the topic the entire time. Hunting isn’t immoral.
So you plan to introduce wolves into places where they’ve never been naturally occuring? That doesn’t sound like “restoration” of any sort, does it? Or is it your ignorance about wolves again? You don’t know where they live and where deer live, do you? You don’t know much they overlap, do you? :)
And no, it’s not the same as comparing feral maine coons to forest cats. That’s you being ignorant again, because you just don’t have any idea how ignorant you are about the subject. It’s paradoxical, I understand, it must be confusing. The difference is much closer to tiger vs a house cat. Not physically as different, but behaviourally, yes. Which you would know if you ever read anything except some tumblr posts. You didn’t even open the actual science I linked.
The difference you’re imagining is much closer to the difference between a dog and a dingo, not a dog and a wolf. You have no idea how different wolves are. No idea. And you seem to be willfully ignoring anything that might contradict your thoughts. Not a very constructive way of thinking, I’m afraid.
“between the walls of text” = “I’m having a hard time concentrating for the entire 1min 30s it takes the average reader to read a half a page of text, but I don’t want to admit that or stop replying, because I don’t want to admit how silly I was being”
Okay buddy.
Oh doesn’t it?
“ideologically dirtier”
You think it’s “cleaner” to have someone go and rip someone to shreds and eat them alive, because you don’t want to “feel dirty”? And it wouldn’t even be you doing the shooting, since you’d never make a hunter with that understanding of nature. There is not a single benefit to reintroducing wolves and SEVERAL MASSIVE downsides to “reintroducing predators” to central Europe.
You definitely didn’t even open the links, so I’m just gonna have to read them for you, sigh…
https://biologyofbehavior.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/are-dogs-and-wolves-the-same-species/ (it’s a wordpress link, but it’s an actual study which references the sources)