Trolled by Instagram star’s fans

An animal charity founder who exposed how an Instagram star had punched a lion club says his fans are now trolling her.

Canterbury-born Carly Åhlén, 40, pictured right, says one abuser has even threatened to burn chimpanzees she has rescued and feed them to tigers.

Her charity, Gabo Wildlife, circulated the clip of Dean Schneider, who is now under investigation for cruelty. Mr Schneider has seven million followers on Instagram and has been likened to Joe Exotic, star of Netflix show Tiger King.

In retaliation, he called out “haters” who circulated the close-up clip and said it does not give the full picture of what happened.

Since then, Miss Åhlén has been inundated with cruel messages on social media.

The 40-year-old said: “They tell me I am lying and I’m jealous and I just want attention. I don’t want attention. “He’s brainwashed them. “They all have been made to believe that hitting a cub is part of a normal reaction.”

Miss Åhlén is also working with charity

Wild@life.e.v, based in Angola, to rescue chimpanzees from the wildlife trade. One of Mr Schneider’s fans commented on the charity’s Youtube videos, threatening to burn the chimpanzees and feed them to tigers.

Miss Åhlén has even been likened to Carole Baskin, Joe Exotic’s nemesis in the documentary, who is intent on bringing his zoo down.

She has now turned comments off on her Youtube videos and brought in tighter security measures on her social media.

Miss Åhlén said: “The lions he has are captive, they are not free and hold no conservation value at all. He is exploiting wildlife for fame and had been trying to get famous for years.”

She added: “I just wanted to get the message out there. I don’t hate him, I just think he should do something better with his time.”