Teen Mom dad Ryan Edwards shoots feral cats on his property, the internet is not happy

It probably won’t surprise most Teen Mom OG fans that Maci Bookout’s ex Ryan Edwards likes to hunt now and then, but it might surprise you to know that the game he hunts is often cats! Ryan shared the startling info on Instagram with a nighttime photo that he described with the caption: “Use to be the cat hang out but I been putting them down with the ol’ air rifle.” Ryan added the hash tags: #quick@quiet and #deadcats.

The comments section immediately began to fill up with shocked and outraged responses, and Ryan was quick to defend himself:

When they start living under you house and having 100 babies that scratch your car and boat and p!ss on everything and get into your garbage let me know. Lol and you can go to jail for vandalizing people’s property and trespassing so I guess I’ll call the cops next time lol like you ppl are stupid

Ryan later posted a photo of Texas veterinarian Kristen Lindsey holding a cat she had killed using a bow and arrow, but he quickly deleted it. Ryan also deleted his original photo, but not before taunting his detractors a bit. “I got a full size brown one tonight,” he wrote. “I think I got all the little ones so just the devil black cat left.”

“I’m sure y’all will come fix my boat and car after they scratch the sh!t out of it…wait no you won’t so SHUT THE F**K UP!” Ryan added in a separate comment. “Y’all need to google what ppl do to cats in different countries if you worried about me.”

Ryan soon got back into taunting mode by posting the above photo of his gun and writing “lol” before commenting with “Even Got high explosive pellets.”

There were more angry comments mixed with some people coming to Ryan’s defense, pointing out that it is not against the law to kill nuisance animals on your property in Tennessee. Ryan seemed amused by it all. “You ppl make me laugh this is such great entertainment,” he wrote.

As far as whether or not Ryan shooting nuisance feral cats on his property is actually illegal in Tennessee, the only statute I could find seems vague. Here is the pertinent excerpt:

A person commits aggravated cruelty (a Class E felony) to animals when, with aggravated cruelty and with no justifiable purpose, he or she intentionally kills or intentionally causes serious physical injury to a companion animal. Exclusions include animal farming, research, veterinary practices, hunting, trapping, “dispatching” rabid animals or wild animals on one’s property, among other things.

That seems to give Ryan two outs in that he could argue that he had a “justifiable purpose” for killing the cats, which would be considered “wild animals on one’s property.” But then again, I’m no lawyer. I’m sure the local police have already been contacted numerous times after Ryan’s posting, so we will know soon enough if his actions merit legal action.