Minnesota hunter admitted shooting dogs, owner claims
Two young German Shepherds, year-and-a-half old Devaki and Makita, were shot and killed on November 12. Co-owners Shannon Hautala, Gary Kuoppala and Alexis Gunderson spoke with the press.
The owners were doing chores on their farm in Clinton Township, Iron Range, Minnesota.
The dogs ducked under a fence and ran into the woods. The owners started calling for the dogs as soon as they went out of sight. Hautala said she heard gunshots shortly afterwards.
The next morning, Hautala found the dogs dead near a hunting stand on the adjoining property. Hautala said the hunters admitted to her they had shot the dogs. Kuoppala said:
All they said is they can shoot anything that comes on their land and if the dogs come on their land, they can shoot them.
Hautala says the dogs were going to be therapy dogs, while Gunderson added:
I'm scared that if they shoot my dogs, they might shoot somebody, ... if somebody's on their land...
As of November 16, authorities say no one has admitted to shooting the dogs to them and that the case is at a standstill.
A "Justice for Devaki and Makita" community on Facebook has been set up.
About the author
EarthFurst — read stories — contact (login required)a Labrador Retriever from Vancouver, Canada, interested in furry and activism etc.
Comments
Too bad he didn't just fuck them. Then there'd be people lining up here to write 1000-word essays defending the sick fuck.
As someone who had a pet killed purposely by someone else, my greatest sympathy lies with those owners.
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RAEG
In my state too!
How dare they!
Oh, man, the ads on the sidebar of the main page are coming up "hunting gear," probably because of this story.
This is one of the reasons why Americans have a bad reputation around the world. It's not the first time I've heard about this. I've had Americans tell me cats shouldn't be allowed to live outside because people will shoot them. Why would you just shoot things for no reason?
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Why would Krypto1701 inflict medically-documented vaginal injuries on dogs entrusted to his care for no reason? (Note: "We're in love! She WANTS me to fuck her!" is not in this case a valid reason.)
I'm not sure how this reflects badly on Americans. It is far from the only country with access to hunting equipment and where people will shoot random animals, including pet animals, for entertainment. How many of those countries make a big deal out of and how many of them would it even be in the news? It would be kind of sad if this reputation you speak of comes from there being an outcry of support for the animals as opposed to some place where it just goes unnoticed. It is also kind of awkward if you are perpetuating the reputation because of the actions of two jerks.
And what areas of the country have people told you not to let cats outside because they would be shot? I've heard of several areas where the winter climate can be harsh, so outside cats can be a bad idea. I've seen people decide to have indoor cats because of difference in life expectancy and health. I've even seen neighbour conflicts about a cats making messes on the neighbour's property, but that only amounted to risk of the animal getting picked up and taken to animal control, to be later retrieved by an annoyed owner. I've never heard of this fear of outside cats being shot, including people from rural to urban areas.
I've heard suburban threats to purposely hit any cat in the road because "they're called HOUSEcats for a reason".
I think Syria has shot a lot more cats. And by cats I'm talking in the early 1900s slang for people.
Why does America always get picked out of the lineup as the bad guy for crimes that are pretty universal?
Hey, Iron Maiden, Run to the Hills is a kickass metal song, but is really appropriate for a British band to trash another country for mistreating a native group of Indians?
I said one of the reasons. There are others and I'm not saying it's the only place in the world that does those things but it's very visible. I don't really want a whole argument over whether America is bad or not or whether some other country is worse.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
We should be able to agree that killing what are clearly other people's domestic animals that are not dangerous is Wrong in any country!
Fred Patten
Of course there are plenty of other reasons the US has the reputation it does, with varying topics and levels of validity, etc., but it just seems odd to single it out on this issue. I have seen complaints of Western countries involving animal rights before, but outside of very narrow issues, it goes the other way with the complaints being along the line of Americans and others having too much free time and too little perspective on the world that they spend so much time and effort fighting for animal rights (not saying I agree with that).
As said before, it seems especially sad if the reputation issue is about the visibility of the act, and not the act itself. The visibility comes from a large number of people in support for the dogs in this case. Although I've seen analogous bad comparisons with other issues, like women's rights, where a country is viewed as having a lot of crime because it collects crime statistics vs. a country where they don't report or record that type of crime.
Unfortunately this story sounds like a he-said-she-said type thing. All there is are some scant details from the dog's owners. Assuming the hunters did shoot the dogs, we don't know if it was an accident or if they purposely shot them wanting to kill some dogs. Everyone makes it out to be the latter. But all we have from the hunters is some quote paraphrased by the dog owner, and it could have been the hunters trying to covering their asses after knowing they screwed up.
I feel bad for the dogs and the dogs' owner, but think it would be hasty to assemble a pitchfork mob.
Well, at the very least, if you're hunting deer and shooting dogs, you're being pretty irresponsible even if it was an accident. Know what you're shooting at before you pull the trigger is one of the first things taught by game rangers at hunter's safety courses, which are required to own a hunting license.
Also, even if it is your land, you can't just shoot anything that walks onto it; there are seasons for game animals, and unless they are specifically damaging to your property or self, you can't shoot them if they aren't.
That being said, as Fred points out below, it would be ridiculously easy to get most animals qualified as pest animals, including stray dogs; the "Duck Season/Rabbit Season" joke doesn't really work, because rabbits are pretty much automatically counted as pest animals, and huntable year round. That being said, a farmer is required to get a "problem animal" license to kill deer eating their crops; the removal of "problem domesticated animals" sounds more like a local animal control problem then a take matters into your own hands.
Realistically, if your neighbor's dog is on your property, and even if it just annoys you and isn't doing something, the smart move wouldn't be to shoot it; it would be to sue the dog owner.
However, Fred's example is strange; even though the squirrels are "pests," firing a gun in city limits is illegal. Unless he's using a BB gun (air powered guns don't count as guns technically most of the time), or poisoning them (since I guess Fred doesn't really say how the killing was done).
(Last year working at a paper, I was assigned the deer season story, and the vegan was assigned the pheasant season. Rural area that makes a lot of money from hunting, so we set our personal issues aside and did the story, because that's small town journalism. Actually probably her best story of the year.)
Outside of some contrived scenarios, the shooting of the dogs was wrong on some level. The issue is there are different levels of wrong and they can reflect differently on the hunter. For example, I think there is some differences between; an "oh, crap what did we kill a dog" accident from accidentally shooting the wrong thing, killing a "pest" animal out of frustration, or trying to kill anything on four legs because they don't care what dies. All of those possibilities should require consequences (assuming an appropriate amount of evidence), but I don't think every single one of them would mean the hunters are some dog hating monsters.
An accident I could see, but for three problems: a. he doesn't seem very remorseful, which may be, admittedly, his side of the story isn't coming through; b. he apparently lied to the police officers, when, actually, if it was just an accident, now is actually edging into illegal territory, and c. he killed two dogs. At that point, it's more likely that he either did it on purpose for some reason, or he was massively, irresponsibly drunk or otherwise chemically impaired at the time of the accident, or both.
Even when someone knows it was just an accident and is remorseful, some people will still try to cover their asses and avoid further consequences. They should own up to their mistake if it was just an accident, as it is not like the massive mess there would be if they accidentally kill a human. But that is not how some people think about or handle such things.
I am not familiar enough with hunting to know how difficult it would be to kill two dogs like that without intending to. Although it seems like if they were shooting at anything with four legs in a wooded area in the evening, it doesn't seem that inconceivable to shoot two things at a distance and not realise they were dogs.
This isn't trying to absolve the hunters, as there is probably a good chance they were grade-A assholes in a situation like this. But it seems problematic how quickly people assume the worst given so little, because some poor dogs were at the centre of this mess and it pulls at the heartstrings. Could be quite dangerous if some people were like that in situations not as benign as internet comments.
Did you not read my earlier post saying the first thing they teach you in the course you have to take to own a hunting licence is make darn sure you're shooting at what you think you are shooting at.
It's illegal to shoot a mule-deer doe in most states, but not a whitetail doe. Do you know what the difference between those two deer are, if you're a hunter and you have a doe tag and you spot an antlerless deer? Well, if you're a hunter, and you've bought the license, you better make sure that's not a mulie, other wise you're about to get fined through the nose. For a mistake. That is really easy to make.
In other words, a deer hunter is expected to know the difference between two nearly identical species of deer that most people don't even know there is a difference. If you're shooting dogs, you're not following the rules. It's exactly like failing to yield and getting in a fenderbender; it was an accident, but you are still liable because to even have the right to drive you already took a course and passed a test saying you know you shouldn't do that, because if you do it at the wrong time people could die horrible, painful deaths.
Because accidents happen, but shooting blind and hitting something you're not supposed to is preventable.
How does that contradict the possibility of them shooting dogs without intending to? Is being "irresponsibly drunk or otherwise chemically impaired" the only possible time people ignore training like that? People do stupid, irresponsible things, including while hunting. And there have been a great many times it has gone wrong, hurting people and others in the process. The analogous point to previous posts is that people who cause such deaths, by being irresponsible while hunting (or not yielding), should be assumed to be serial killers at heart, monsters out to kill people on purpose.
And I could ask in like: Did you not read the earlier posts saying this doesn't absolve the hunters and that they should face consequences regardless of the situation (assuming appropriate evidence)?
There was once another anonymous poster here who quoted some b.s. by Oscar Wilde saying once is an accident, twice is ... something. I don't remember, he was an idiot, but the point is shut up you're wrong.
Unless you're implying two dogs were killed by one bullet.
There's a tasteless JFK "Back, and to the left." joke in here somewhere.
So to summarise, there are only three kinds of hunters: Those that purpose kill animals they shouldn't, drunk ones, and fully lawful safety rule followers. And to call this a false trichotomy is wrong. In other words, there is no such thing as unsafe/unlawful but sober hunter that shoots at things they shouldn't, possibly hitting something they didn't intend or want to?
Seriously, this is my entire argument:
Two dogs. Two.
Could you please address this issue?
That was previously addressed: it is not inconceivable that hunters shoot more than one thing before finding out what they were shooting at, especially in a wooded area in the evening (or night as described in the article). You responded that this would go against hunting training and safety rules, as if that stops people from doing it.
There is a rather big difference of implication for someone's character between killing something on purpose and killing something by being irresponsible and/or stupid, even if both do the same damage and both should result in consequences. There can be some rather troublesome issues assuming the worst about people, with rather little evidence, in order to appease ego and emotion.
I can't believe I didn't think of it, you know, two weeks earlier, but, uh, maybe they thought they were coyotes?
That's one area CSI got right; pretty much you can just shoot coyotes. I think some states may still have bounties on them. And German Shepherds do look coyote-ish. The article doesn't even mention what they were hunting, though I've never heard of coyote hunting via stand.
Of course, since coyotes weren't mentioned, I'm still betting they were just angry at there neighbors and shot their dogs.
I guess the moral of the story is, if you ever end up shooting something you might get in trouble for shooting, just say, "I thought it was a coyote." It actually works.
i had a friend who was trying to befriend the squirrels in his neighborhood (in urban Southern California). He fed them unshelled walnuts to attract them. He gave it up because he had a neighbor who killed the squirrels as fast as they came. He complained to the police, but they could do nothing because the squirrels were technically wild animals, not his pets, and could be regarded as disease-carrying pests.
Fred Patten
It was by poison. The squirrels had become accustomed to being fed by a human, so it was easy for another human to poison them.
Fred Patten
That's the worst way, and pretty much the guy is ironclad, too.
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