Jimmy John's is trending on Twitter, and it's not because of the Chicken Sandwich Wars or its free house contest.
The hashtag #BoycottJimmyJohns was trending Friday with calls for a boycott of the sandwich restaurant, after a photo resurfaced of the company's founder Jimmy John Liautaudwith an elephant he killed.
The photo itself is old and has frequently made the rounds on Twitter.
On Friday, "Star Wars" actorMark Hamill retweetedan April 19 tweet and wrote: "Thumbs up to a boycott of all @jimmyjohns restaurants!"
Brother Nature, who has a Twitter following of 2.3 million, also retweeted theApriltweet and wrote, "We boycotting Jimmy Johns."
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The tweet has been retweeted nearly 65,000 times and liked more than 175,000 at 2:45 p.m. ET, 11 hours after it was posted.
Twitter user@DiamondJoe1985responded to BrotherNature's tweet with a plea.
"Please learn about African wildlife conservation before boycotting anything and making assumptions. Every damn time one of these pics pops up people go crazy and don’t have the slightest clue about the entire process," @DiamondJoe1985tweeted to Brother Nature, which he retweeted. "And the actual benefits behind this type of hunting."
In 2015, the Chicago Tribune reported that Liautaud acknowledged a misconception about him is that people still connect him to photos of him posing with elephants, rhinos and other endangered animals he shot.
"I choose to hunt and I choose to fish," Liautaud told the paper. "Everything I've done has been totally legal. And the meat has been eaten, if not by me then by someone I'm with. I don't hunt big African game anymore."
Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter:@KellyTyko
