Antelope Massacre Beyond Sickening

Photo: Fish, Wildlife,& Parks

This is taken from a local newspaper: (words in italics are not my words)
Montana Outdoors: Poacher takes heavy, senseless toll
15 antelope shot northwest of Forsyth
By MARK HENCKEL, Montana Outdoors
Someone went on an illegal shooting spree on Highway 12 between Forsyth and Ingomar last week. In his or her wake, they left 15 dead and dying antelope.

The incident likely took place on April 8, Easter Sunday, according to Jack Austin, warden sergeant for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks at Miles City. He'd like to find the poacher.

"There's a chance it could have happened either late Saturday or early Monday, but we feel it was probably on Easter Sunday," Austin said. "The call came in that there was a bunch of dead antelope. When game warden Todd Anderson got there, a couple of them were still struggling so he had to euthanize them."

All of the dead antelope were on the east side of the highway and the trail of death was scattered along a long stretch of road.

"It covered a fair distance. It was 20 miles worth or more," he said. "It was one here. Four or five miles another. One place had three lying dead. Another had two.

There are some winter-killed antelope out there, but these were not winter-killed," he said. "All of these died by gunshot. The shooter was very accurate. They spined most of them."

The final death toll included four bucks and 11 does. All of the does were pregnant with twins and would have delivered them in May.

"A couple of the bucks were doozies. They were extremely heavy horned clear to the end. They were trophies," Austin said. "They still had a couple of inches to grow, but they had plenty of time to do that before fall. They would have been trophies to some hunter."

The bottom line is that it's a horrible waste of a wildlife resource for nothing more than pulling the trigger on an animal.

So this is fun? I know these animals have been poached, but come on! It is also sickening to know that people (sport hunters I am sure) are sad because they lost some fine trophies. Note the "waste of wildlife resource" sentence towards the end. Seems like wildlife are just a "resource" for dead animal wall decor to hunters anyway. Notice there was no mention of loss of meat for survival, just nice trophies. "Resource" for survival is one thing but "resource" for sport hunting is crap. It is a nightmare to wildlife and to my own soul's well-being. This article and picture almost make me throw up.