New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo reeled in a big one off Long Island — and got swamped in a flood of criticism for killing a type of shark listed as vulnerable to extinction.
Cuomo tweeted out the 154.5-pound thresher shark catch after pulling it in off the South Shore of Long Island.
Cuomo’s chief of staff, Melissa DeRosa, also tweeted out the picture, adding the governor had caught it with his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
Thresher sharks, although legal to catch, are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the New York Post reports.
"Takes a big man to kill a species that is 'globally vulnerable due to declining population,' ” one disgusted woman tweeted.
Another scolded:
"How Governor Andrew Cuomo has reached high office seemingly unaware of the crisis facing some of the world’s shark populations is beyond me," John Hourston, the founder of online pressure group Blue Planet Society, tells the Guardian, comparing the tweet to the game-hunting dentist who posed with Cecil the lion.
"To blithely post a picture of himself on social media grinning next to a threatened animal killed by his own hands shows an almost unfathomable lack of judgment for a public servant, and sets a terrible example to the world."
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