Sacred White Moose Killing Ignites Outrage: Hunters Make Amends Following Viral Facebook Post

By Jobs & Hire Staff Reporter | Oct 11, 2013 12:25 PM EDT

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A killing of a white 'spirit' moose, which Canadian aboriginal groups deem sacred, ignited an outrage amongst many after photos of the killing of the white moose surfaced on a Facebook page, Yahoo! News reported Friday.

The hunters, who had killed a white moose recently in Nova Scotia, are now walking on thin ice, but they are trying their best to make amends to end the controversy surrounding them.

According to Washington AFP, the rare white moose was shot and brought by the hunters to Hnatiuk's Hunting & Fishing Ltd., a taxidermy shop, last week in the town of Lantz. The public outrage only commenced after the shop posted a photo of the deemed sacred animal's carcass on its Facebook page.

Although the page received as many as 10,000 hits just three days after the photo was posted, most if not all of the comments it received range from demeaning to cruel remarks towards the hunters, calling them "idiots" and "ignorant with no respect or common sense."

Twitter posts against the hunters also escalated quickly.

"I cannot believe anyone could kill such a beautiful creature. I guess they think they are really big men now. Shame, shame, shame," one Twitter user wrote.

"How can something that is so sacred and honored by the community be a trophy?" a fellow hunter commented.

Jim Hnatiuk, the owner of the shop told AFP that he spoke with the hunters when they handed over the dead moose. "They said, had they known the significance of this they wouldn't have shot the moose."

"Some people believe that shooting a white moose is bad luck, but the hunters were totally unaware of its significance," he added.

According to local news, the three local hunters, who are intentionally left unnamed, have already apologized to the Mi'kmaq tribe and agreed to surrender the hide, which will be used in a ceremony that is said to dispel a curse for their grave action against the sacred animal inhabiting the Nova Scotia highlands.

The ceremony will be executed next week and is bound to last from several days to a week. Meantime, the hunters get to keep the head of the white moose as trophy.

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