Farm Animal Societal Violence - 2007 in Review

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A beastly kind of cruelty

 

Drive-by shooters, often youths, are killing farm animals in a

growing wave of violence. The culprits may face only vandalism

charges.

 

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 17, 2007

 

PETALUMA, CALIF. -- The buzzards led Nick Bursio to his prized calf.

He found the body just over a rise in the field, with a bullet hole

in its left shoulder, near the heart.

 

Bursio had heard of animals killed by rustlers for their meat. But

not until that May morning had he ever imagined anything so senseless

as shooting cattle presumably just to watch them die.

 

" I had a hollow feeling in my gut, to see that dead calf laying

there, with the mother cow bellowing nearby, " said the Sonoma County

rancher. " I thought, what the hell's going on in this place? "

 

Authorities are searching for a drive-by shooter who guns down cows

as they calmly munch grass in the rolling pastureland 50 miles north

of San Francisco. Since February, five cows have been found dead in

two counties, shot with small-caliber bullets designed to inflict

prolonged pain and suffering.

 

Nationwide, an increasing number of animal cruelty cases are being

reported outside city limits: Horses, cows, goats and other farm

animals are being killed, authorities say, often by angry, reckless

youths, perhaps acting on dares.

 

Although there are no statistics on such crimes, newspapers detail

scores of cases. Two Texas college students were indicted last fall

for slashing a horse's neck before stabbing it in the heart with a

broken golf club handle. In Pennsylvania in 2005, three joy-riding

men killed a pony named Ted E. Bear that belonged to a 4-year-old boy.

 

Last year, two Tennessee teens shot and killed 24 cows, many of them

pregnant. " They just wanted to see what shooting cattle was like, "

said Hickman County Sheriff Randal Ward.

 

California has also seen its share of the rural violence. In addition

to the Northern California cattle shootings, Oakland police are

investigating the May killing of 15 goats, each shot in the face as

they huddled in a portable pen. Officers said residents had called in

to report the sound of " babies crying. "

 

Fresno County detectives arrested two groups of teens in 2005 in the

shooting of two dozen cows and horses. In 2003, two Sonoma County men

used their cars to ram to death a horse named Gentle Song.

 

Still, the killing of large farm animals garners little attention in

the United States, where the loudest outcry is reserved for the

killing of suburban pets or other domesticated animals. Recently, pro

football quarterback Michael Vick made front-page news, charged in

connection with operating a dog-fighting farm.

 

Although 43 states have passed felony animal cruelty laws, they

rarely apply to livestock -- thanks in part to a strong cattleman's

lobby -- as long as ranchers follow " accepted husbandry practices. "

 

In California, state law provides some protection for large farm

animals, but enforcement varies among counties. As a result,

prosecutors in farm cases often settle for convictions on lesser

vandalism charges.

 

" Animals raised commercially for food have little legal protection

against cruelty, " said Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, a

group that campaigns against cruelty to farm animals. " It speaks to a

prejudice against certain animals, not based on a rational assessment

of their ability to feel pain but on our intended use for them. "

 

Studies suggest that youths who engage in animal cruelty often commit

violent criminal behavior as adults. Among those who preyed on

animals before turning on people were mass killers Jeffrey Dahmer,

Ted Bundy and Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler.

 

The random killing of larger animals signals a troubling psychology

that experts are only beginning to understand. Even when caught, most

youths refuse to talk about their crimes.

 

" When you do get to talk to kids and ask why they did it, the most

common response is that they were bored, " said Randall Lockwood, vice

president for anti-cruelty initiatives at the American Society for

the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. " They're obviously troubled.

Most bored teens shoot hoops or go see movies; they don't go out

shooting horses and cows.

 

" But you're not going to hear them say, 'I'm alienated against

society and this is how I'm reaching out,' " he said.

 

Still, researchers are developing a personality profile of those who

kill large animals outside the context of legal hunting. Abusers who

target livestock act out of a different motivation than those who

pick on smaller creatures, said Mary Lou Randour, national director

of human-animal relations for the Humane Society. " Driving around in

search of animals to kill is very planned and methodical, which could

make it more pathological and dangerous. These animals could be

standbys for the real thing: a human being. "

 

In January, a 16-year-old Humboldt County boy was sentenced to 15

years in prison for the killing of a homeless man. Earlier, that same

night, the teen fired a dozen shots into a cow, hitting it in the

face and eye and cutting off an ear, authorities said.

 

Such violence preoccupies Cindy Machado, a Marin County Humane

Society detective. Combing country roads in her blue animal control

truck, she is pursuing four cases involving the killing of cattle in

the San Francisco area.

 

" What kind of coward sneaks out here to put a bullet into these

creatures? " she said, motioning to some dairy cows, who watch her

warily. " They're big and friendly. They're not moving. "

 

In May, after Bursio found his dead 600-pound Charolais heifer,

Machado got on the phone to Fresno County, where detectives had

solved a series of farm animal killings in 2005.

 

She says the cases are similar: " They combine guns and kids and back

roads. It's a disaster waiting to happen. "

 

As Craig Allen recalls, the yearling colt just wasn't acting right:

It refused to go near the roadside fence at Old English Rancho, a

Fresno County thoroughbred farm.

 

Workers found the creature bleeding from a bullet hole in its

buttock. Allen, the manager who is responsible for 600 horses, rushed

to check on other yearlings.

 

It was the start of the most horrible day of his life.

 

He found another panicked horse shot in the neck, a stream of blood

trickling down its chest, and helped lead the wild-eyed animal to the

stables. There, several men held the horse still as a veterinarian

tried to pass a tracheal tube down its throat.

 

Within moments, the horse was dead. " He drowned in his own blood, "

Allen said.

 

That year, 2005, seven horses were killed in Fresno County, including

two fillies that motorists had liked to stop and pet. Several months

before the Old English Rancho attack, a rancher found one of his cows

lying on its side, kicking its legs in the air, blood pouring out of

a gunshot wound in its neck. Another cow was paralyzed. Both had been

shot in the back of the head. In all, 16 cows belonging to several

ranchers were killed within four months.

 

Authorities arrested two teens in the cow shootings. One came from a

home with 25 guns.

 

Pat Sample lost eight cattle to the snipers. In court, a judge

ordered that the boys apologize, but the rancher refused to hear

them. " I told the judge there's something really wrong in our society

for kids to act this way, " he said. " Why do they do it? "

 

Not long after making arrests in the cow case, two teenagers were

convicted in the horse shootings: a shooter and an accomplice. The 17-

year-old shooter maintained his innocence and refused to talk with a

court psychologist.

 

A lawyer for one of the boys says he doesn't understand the

motivation in such an attack.

 

" Rural kids grow up with guns. They shoot squirrels and coyotes as

predator control, so the idea of shooting a rifle from a vehicle is

not abnormal, " said attorney Mark Coleman. " Still, I just cannot

fathom the transition it takes to start shooting livestock. "

 

George Kayian, a former Fresno County assistant district attorney who

prosecuted all the Central Valley teenagers, said they had too little

adult supervision and too much access to guns. " You see something,

you shoot it -- and then you drive down the road for a few more

laughs, " said Kayian, now in private practice. " It's someone else's

problem. "

 

Investigators say society is beginning to take a tougher stance on

such cruelty. After two college students stabbed a 14-month-old

quarter horse named Cowgirl Chic last fall, Texas improved

protections for farm animals, creating a legal definition of what

constitutes torture that includes inflicting " unjustifiable pain or

suffering. "

 

" Most places, you've got to go a long way to be considered cruel to

livestock, " said Robert Trimble, an attorney for the Texas Humane

Legislation Network, a nonprofit group that promotes animal

protection laws. " The industry is paranoid that somehow what they do

in their routine animal husbandry could be called cruelty. We're

working to give these animals some protection. "

 

At Old English Rancho, the same day the yearling died, Allen put down

the horse shot in the buttocks because the bullet had entered the

horse's abdomen.

 

A third horse, hit in the shoulder, survived. Said Allen: " We named

him 'I'm Bulletproof.' "

 

One morning in June, Cindy Machado examined a rusted yellow cattle

crossing sign along a deserted back road: The steer's image had been

shot through the heart. She ran her hand along the jagged exit holes.

 

Machado thinks the sign was shot recently and that it might be a clue.

 

In the miles of Marin County grazing land that are now her crime

scene, she looks for traces a cow killer may have left behind: a

swastika etched into the middle of a road, bashed-in mailboxes,

mangled empty beer cans, the shot-up road sign.

 

She also tries to soothe the nerves of angry local ranchers, one of

whom suffered a heart attack after a cow was gunned down in his field.

 

" Hey, we all lose animals; they die. But these killings are off the

charts, " said Mike Gale, president of the Marin County Farm

Bureau. " They've gotten under the skin of the ranching community

here. If they catch these kids, I'm afraid they're going to do

something terrible to them. "

 

Machado knows the anger. She once ran a cattle ranch. Cows are more

than just walking slabs of beef, she says. You get attached to them,

name them.

 

Photos of the crime scenes decorate the walls of Machado's office.

She scours the shoulders of roads, using a metal detector to hunt for

spent shell casings.

 

She brought one rotting calf carcass to the shelter where she works

to X-ray it for metal fragments: " It was looking for a needle in a

haystack. But we had to try. "

 

Officials have offered a $16,000 reward in the Northern California

cattle cases. But so far, it has yielded no leads.

 

Machado isn't giving up. One afternoon, she leaned out of her patrol

truck and offered her card to two girls and a boy who were feeding

cattle at their family's ranch. She drove away, observing the teens

in her rearview mirror.

 

" The kids killing these animals are out here somewhere, " she said. " I

hope we find them soon. They really need help. "

 

john.glionna