mad_andy

I am angry.

My boss has a smallholding where some of the larger animals in his collection live, along with geese and ducks and chickens and rabbits and -- you get the picture. He had a trio of Mara (also known as Patagonian Cavies, looking something like a giant guinea pig on stilts), and back in June somebody shot one of them. In the hind leg.

It had to be put to sleep because the bone was shattered when a bullet went straight through it. It suffered enormously.

Now, I could understand how it could have been shot by mistake; somebody out poaching for muntjac (small deer) could have seen the Mara's ears when it was lying in the grass and taken a pop... only to discover a completely harmless south american rodent in agony from a smashed hind leg.

That was bad enough. Two weeks ago Chris bought a pair of Rhea (like emus but from south america), which he was chuffed to bits with, for several reasons. One, they were white, which is very unusual. Two, they were adults, ready to breed in the spring. Three, they were dog tame, would come and feed from the hand.

So you have two birds five feet high with fuzzy feathers, white, stand out like belisha beacons. That will, if you go stand at the fence or in their paddock, come across looking for a treat.

(You know what's coming, don't you?)

Chris rang me from the field this morning - he'd popped down there to let the poultry out and check the animals. Only to find that the male rhea was down with his leg smashed. The female was next to him, grooming him and trying to encourage him to rise.

Rheas have strong legs, kind of like horses. Thick, strong leg bones.

Someone had called the bird over to the fence (from tracks left and other evidence), and then shot him. Through the leg. An injury that is untreatable when you use a fucking bullet from a powerful rifle that blows a hole clean through three inches of solid bone.

And then they left.

God alone knows how long he'd been lying there; there was a hell of a lot of blood in the field, and we assume that the only thing that brought the bird down was shock and blood loss. This was a tame bird, in a paddock with eight foot high deer fencing. Rhea are not noisy, not aggressive, not smelly. They are as inoffensive as its possible for such a large animal to be.

And someone shot him through the leg and left him bleeding and screaming.

He was put to sleep in the field. The female never left his side. Chris says she became very distressed when his body was removed. They were a bonded pair, and she's going to fret until company is found for her.

Chris showed me the body; he'd taken it to the vet in Abingdon to see what they said about the nature of the wound. I had a good look, and to be honest it's hard to see what else could cause such a wound. A dirty great hole straight through the bone, big enough to break it into two pieces; no inflammation or bruising of the joint, so he hadn't caught his foot in the fence or anything like that.

I'm sorry, I know I'm going on. But the thought that someone, some human being, some individual, thought that it was OK to inflict such appalling damage and agony on a living creature and then walk away is just... just....

Even I'm speechless.

Chris has spoken to the police (it's a fucking offence to fire a rifle that powerful either at random, or on land where you don't have the landowners express permission), and I have got on to the local press. We will kick up a stink and we will not stop until we find the unbelievable bastard who has done this. Let's see how they feel lying in a field bleeding to death.

I am angry.