A beastly kind of cruelty

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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.

 

 

 

 

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