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The latest target of online anti-hunting activists is a northern Alberta boy who shot a bear at his ninth birthday party.

But the newly publicized video of the shooting is so old Reed is now 14 — and his father says the family has become unfair pawns in a crusade against trophy and big game hunters in a post-Cecil the Lion world.

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Britain’s Daily Mirror, which dug up the five-year-old “shocking video” as part of an investigation, describes the children hiding in a “lair” above a group of black bears eating oats from bait traps set by the hunters.

“The delighted lad and four pals then giggled at the grisly birthday party as they chatted about the killing,” the Mirror reports.

But according to Greg Sutley, the video depicts his son Reed’s “coming of age” as he fires a shot into the heart of the oldest and largest black bear, killing it instantly, just as he has been trained to do.

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The video wraps by showing the group of boys, dressed in camouflage excitedly recounting their experience, a point Mr. Sutley also believes was taken out of context by press across the pond.