LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – An Acadiana business owner is under fire from animal rights activists because of his personal hobby.
For 46 years Deano’s has served pizza to the people of Acadiana. But it wasn’t until recently that second generation owner Tim Metcalf has been targeted because of his personal hobbies.
A hunter all his life, Metcalf says he’s being harassed by animal rights activists.
“People call in some orders and then they wait about 25-30 minutes, they call back and say because Tim Metcalf is the owner, correct, they verify in the owner, ‘we’re not going to be picking up that pizza because we don’t believe in what he does for a hobby.’”
Last week the Bertrand Drive and Kaliste Saloom Road locations received nearly 15 calls from people claiming to be animal rights activists, including a couple death threats on Facebook.
Tim is a bow hunter and has hunted game around the world.
“Deer, mountain lions, bears, African plains animals, pretty much anything that is legal.”
Tim says he thinks the activists have seen this photo of him and a Black Rhino.
According to Metcalf, in 2009 he was asked to tranquilize the rhino using his bow and arrow.
“It wasn’t harmed in any way. In fact, we drilled the horn with a microchip to prevent it from being killed, poached. So, A lot of the time they look at that picture and they just put two into together and come up with 10 and it’s not true.”
No matter how many fake orders are called in, Tim says their strategy isn’t working.
“My Community, Lafayette, I love them so much! They’re coming to the floor and supporting me 100%. It’s not working, and if you guys wanted to talk about animal hunting and whatnot, I’ll be happy to sit down and speak to you with facts.”
We reached out to a local animal rights group, the Coalition of Louisiana Animal Advocates to find out if their members were behind the calls.
Their response was:
“We are very sorry to hear this is happening, and not a part of our mission. Our Board of Directors has no knowledge of these actions by our members nor agree with its intent.”
COLAA was the only local animal rights association we reached out to.
Read the original article here.
