Spring brings much needed sun for people but it hasn't been so sunny for farm animals across the country. The Humane Society of the United States has outlined several disturbing animal abuse cases in the past couple months against animals that are neither cat nor dog. Abuse cases against animals such as horses and geese are more common in your community than you may know.
It's early April in Keizer, Ore., and 67 geese are found dead at Staats Lake. Laboratory tests then confirmed that the geese were poisoned, killed by zinc phosphide. The poison, used by farmers, golf course managers and others to kill rodents, is generally only allowed to be placed underground in animal burrows, mainly to prevent it from poisoning geese.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigators are currently considering all possibilities, including the illegal use of the poison. "Careless, possibly illegal use of poisons demonstrates disregard for other creatures who share our world," said Kelly Peterson, the HSUS? Oregon state director.
The HSUS is currently offering a reward of up to $1,500 for information leading to the identification and convictions of the person or persons responsible for the crime.
In Florida it was a larger animal that proved to have a rough spring. On April 26, Beauty Haven Farm and Equine Rescue owners found one of their horses with wounds and lacerations. The injuries appeared to have been caused by a blunt instrument or whip. Cigarette burns were also found on the animal.
The incident was not an isolated one for the equine rescue. Six months earlier, a pony sustained similar injuries and just two months earlier another horse was shot with a BB gun. The Levy County Sheriff's office is investigating whether or not all three crimes are connected.
Killing geese may have been out of season on April 25 in Rankin County Mississippi but that did not stop the state's senator Mike Gunn from allegedly killing seven goslings (baby geese) in a gas barbeque pit.
Prior to the 2008 legislative season, the HSUS ranked Mississippi's animal cruelty laws as the weakest in the nation. "Because Mississippi's anti-cruelty law is one of the nation's weakest, actions as heinous as killing goslings in a grill have to be treated as poaching violations rather than cruelty to animals," said HSUS executive vice president Michael Markarian.
On April 30 Tory Morgan found the remains of her 10-year-old blind pony, Kahlua. Mercer County Humane Society officers believe that the pony was roped to an all-terrain vehicle and dragged. The animal's back legs were both broken, and his front legs, chest and belly sustained major lacerations. Four of her other horses sustained cuts and scratches, potentially while fleeing the assailant or assailants.
The HSUS is currently offering a reward up to $2,500 for information leading to the identification of the person or persons responsible for this crime.
Anyone with information about the geese poisoning case in Oregon please contact special agent Jim Stinebaugh with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Anyone with information about the horse abuse case in Morriston, Fla., please contact Levy County Sheriff's office investigator Mike Narayan.
If you have more information about the pony dragging death case in Pennsylvania contact the Mercer County Humane Society.
