UPDATE: Film director Michael Bay of "Transformers" fame is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the infamous puppy-throwing girl. (Read more at PopEater.com.)
(Aug. 31) -- Sadly, it appears that the viral "Cat Tossed in Garbage Can" video has been outdone.
On Tuesday, disturbing footage surfaced of a woman apparently tossing several puppies into a fast-flowing river. The video seems to shows a young woman, likely in her late teens to early 20s, drawing puppies from a bucket and recklessly hurling them to certain death in the water. Various reports indicate that the video was shot somewhere in Eastern Europe, possibly in Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina. A PETA spokesperson said that local activists in Bosnia have been notified of the incident, according to the Telegraph.
(Warning: the video contains repeated acts of what appear to be genuine animal cruelty and physical harm. Click here to view.)
Not surprisingly, animal rights activists and concerned individuals who have come across the video on online forums and social networking sites such as Facebook are taking aim at the puppy-hurling culprit, vowing to hold her accountable. But nobody seems to have determined her identity yet.
Of course, there is one, near-certain way to bring the alleged puppy-tosser to justice, although it is severe and irreversible: calling in 4chan, the infamous image sharing community known for both its ability to generate memes (such as the popular "LOLCats" and "Rickrolling" phenomena) and inflict terror -- both virtual and real -- on those who cross it. The site recently played Internet detective in unmasking 45-year-old bank worker and cat-trasher Mary Bale. And true to form, according to the Daily Mail, 4Chan is now hot on the trail of the red-hooded puppy-tosser.
Much like in Bale's case, which was originally thought to be a hoax, some viewers are skeptical of the puppy video's legitimacy. In fact, aside from the Bale footage, no other widely circulated animal cruelty videos have been verifiable. Nevertheless, the film is just latest incident in a growing trend, which also includes this video of a U.S. soldier allegedly throwing a puppy off a cliff -- on whom the Internet vigilantes took a different kind of revenge: