Police are on the hunt for a girl in a red sweatshirt filmed throwing puppies into a roaring river, and PETA has offered a $2,000 reward for her capture.
At the same time, though a video showed up on YouTube and was quickly removed for "terms of use violations" that appeared to be a public apology from the puppy-thrower herself.
According to Croatian news agency Vijesti, police in Bugojno are actively searching for the girl seen in the video, who is now believed to be in Bosnia.
Animal abuse laws in Bosnia allow for perpetrators to be fined, but no jail time is expected.
"I will try to process everything in my power, and examine this case," a spokesperson for the Bosnian ministry of the interior told Bosnia's Nezavisne news agency.
But despite a police search, few new details have emerged.
"It is not exactly determined where the girl was and where it was filmed," the Bosnian state veterinarian said.
They're not the only ones on the lookout, though. The video of the girl, readily available online, has sparked an international furor among animal rights activists and sympathizers.
In an interview with the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, a cruelty case worker with PETA said the organization is offering a $2,000 reward for the capture and conviction of the puppy-thrower.
On Wednesday evening, Gawker media reported that Hollywood director Michael Bay also offered $50,000 reward for the girl's arrest.
Then, on Thursday afternoon, a video surfaced on YouTube that used a single frame-grab from the original video with the text of an apology overlaid on it.
The apology read: "My name is Katja Puschnik and I would like to appologize [sic] for my behavior. The puppies belong to my grandma and she told me to get rid off them because they were only 3 days and they were ill. They had parasites from their mother. I didn't knew [sic] exactly what to do so I thrown [sic] them in the river because it was a short death. I did not want to make them suffer. I am really sorry for this :("
But its quick removal from YouTube and lack of additional information makes it difficult to tell if the apology is real or a hoax.
The video hit the Internet on Tuesday and immediately caused an international uproar. Less than a minute long, the video shows a young girl, likely a teenager, picking up puppies from a white bucket and hurling them into a roaring river. She can be heard to laugh or say "whee" as she does so.
Previous analysis of the video has found her to be speaking Croatian with a strong Bosnian accent.
