Animal rights activists are taking aim at Kid Rock over a photo of the rapper holding a dead mountain lion, but rocker Ted Nugent doesn't seem to mind.
Nugent posted the photo to his Facebook page earlier this month, showing the 44-year-old Rock and another man dressed in hunting garb, posing with the dead cat against a snowy backdrop. Nugent didn't specify where the kill took place -- mountain lions in the U.S. range primarily across 14 Western states -- but he rationalized the hunt as conservational in the photo caption:
And what a grand conservation New Year it is! HAIL my MotorCity boy KidRock for saving all those muledeer elk & livestock by whacking this magnificent mountain lion. I can hear the braindead squawkers already with their obscene denial that killing lions is wrong. Its legal its necessary its good its beneficial its a damn riot! ... Praise the mighty life giving renewable protein/sport/trophy/FUN! 2015 be good good year so far!
PETA, however, condemned the killing.
"It's obvious that not everyone has evolved mentally and emotionally when you see someone grinning after gunning down another living being who was busy minding his or her own business and living life," PETA's Senior International Media Director Ben Williamson said in a statement to The Huffington Post. "These days, only the very smallest percentage of people find it acceptable in any way to support blood sports like trophy hunting."
Although some states in the animal's range have prohibited hunting them for sport, the killing of mountain lions is not illegal under federal law. The Animal Control Damage Control Act, passed in 1931, allows the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to "conduct campaigns for the destruction or control" of animals like coyotes, bears and mountain lions that pose apparent threats to agriculture or livestock. In 1971, Western states began paying bounties to licensed hunters to shoot mountain lions. Since then, mountain lion kills have steadily increased, according to the non-profit Mountain Lion Foundation.
As for Nugent and Rock, the two Michigan natives are apparently ready for yet another hunting season.
CLARIFICATION: Language has been added to clarify the laws on the hunting of mountain lions.
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