The Humane Society of the United States is taking a stand against computer set-ups that are used for the “remote control” hunting of live animals.

Following reports that a Texas man used his home computer to remotely fire a rifle and kill a wild boar in late January, the Humane Society is urging state and federal lawmakers to ban what it calls an appalling activity.

“What started as a depraved idea has apparently become a sickening reality,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the HSUS.

“This is a snuff film scenario in which animals will be senselessly killed for the voyeuristic pleasure of someone sitting at a keyboard. It is pay-per-view slaughter. This remotely delivered cruelty should be shut down and outlawed immediately.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram described the San Antonio hunter as the first online customer of a “canned hunt” in Texas, where the grounds are stocked with penned-in, exotic (non-indigenous) animals.

Reports say a customer pays hundreds or even thousands of dollars to log onto a website that is linked to a shooting platform. A video camera allows the customer to see the animals, and then, with a few keyboard strokes and a click of the mouse, people can fire real rifles at any animal who crosses their screen, HSUS said.

The Virginia Legislature has passed the nation’s first bill banning Internet hunting, which now awaits the governor’s signature; and similar bills are pending in Alabama, California, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

The HSUS estimates there are more than 1,000 canned hunting operations in at least 25 states nationwide, but it says Internet hunting has put an entirely new spin on the business.

“States should urgently prohibit people from participating in or operating Internet hunts within their own borders, and Congress should immediately act to prohibit the interstate and foreign commerce of these cruel and unsporting video-shooting galleries.”

Given the interstate nature of the activity, a federal response is warranted and appropriate, Pacelle said. He noted that in 1999, Congress passed legislation banning the interstate sale of videos depicting extreme acts of cruelty.

In addition to animal welfare concerns, Pacelle said Internet hunting raises important questions for public safety and homeland security: He raised the scenario of terrorists possibly experimenting with computer-assisted shooting.

John Lockwood, the San Antonio man who devised the first computer-assisted hunting system, says he did so with disabled people in mind.

“That’s what this is intended for, to bring people an opportunity to hunt who don’t have any other choice, really,” press reports quoted Lockwood as saying.

The Humane Society of the United States describes itself as a “mainstream voice for animals.”