(Newser) – Appalled Canadian authorities are investigating the slaughter of up to 100 huskies used to pull tourist sleds. An employee at a British Columbia company says he was ordered to kill scores of healthy dogs when business dropped off after the 2010 Winter Olympics. The killings came to light after he was compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder. "It wasn't always a clean, one-shot kill. Inevitably, he ended up seeing and having to put the end to some horrific scenes," said the worker's lawyer.

Animal welfare groups say the dogs were killed in a brutal manner and dumped in a mass grave. "Any dog sledder who culls dogs at the end of a season should be culled himself, as far as we’re concerned,” the head dog sledding guide for an Ontario company told the Globe and Mail. “You don’t go out and cull dogs," he said. "We’re part of the largest dog sled operation in the world with 40 dogs, and we never cull dogs. We retire them, they’re adopted. There are a lot of alternatives.” (Read more huskies stories.)

