Who shot and killed 15 horses? The reward has grown to more than $15K for answers
Authorities are investigating after at least 15 horses were found fatally shot Tuesday near a strip mining site in Eastern Kentucky.
The horses were found along a strip job near the Pike and Floyd County line by U.S. Highway 23, WYMT reported.
Some of the horses were only one year old or younger, and some were pregnant, according to authorities, who added that it appears the horses were shot with a low-caliber rifle.
“This is very inhumane, and it’s a very cruel act of somebody who just apparently had nothing else to do or whatever, just to go back on a strip job and shoot down horses who were, one of them obviously was feeding, had grass in its mouth,” Floyd County Sheriff John Hunt told WYMT. “It looked like a battlefield for just horses.”
NOTE: European Americans United condemns this unnecessary and cruel act without reservation or impediment. In the type of society we envision, the person or persons responsible would never walk among free men again.
Hunt added that it was one of the worst cases of animal cruelty he has ever seen.
At the minimum, the perpetrator of the violent act will likely face animal cruelty charges, according to authorities.
An individual had initially contacted the sheriff’s office and reported that he found five of his horses dead.
The unidentified man’s property is reportedly next to the abandoned strip mine, and his horses had reportedly gone onto the strip job and joined several unowned horses that have roamed the area for years.
Hunt said authorities spent most of Tuesday morning trying to reach the strip mine location to confirm the number of horses that have been killed, but rainy weather made travel difficult up the hillside, according to the Floyd County Chronicle & Times.
Hunt also said most of the horses “were scattered out.
Hunt posted an update Thursday morning on the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page stating that deputies along with members of Dumas Rescue, a local animal rescue group, and veterinarians “will go back today to gather more evidence and information that will hopefully assist in the investigation.”
“The site where these horses are located can only be accessed by ATV/UTV type vehicles so we are having to coordinate with individuals to help transport us back to the location,” Hunt said. “We will be announcing soon the total reward amount as it has increased substantially. It has been heartbreaking seeing these beautiful horses killed but it had equally been heartwarming to see all the concerns and see all the support in assisting in the investigation and to give the living horses a good home. Thank you to everyone.”
An initial $500 reward for information on the incident has grown to $15,000, with numerous animal rescue and welfare organizations along with individual donors contributing funds in hopes of finding answers.
Dumas Rescue, one of the local animal rescue groups helping out the sheriff’s office in the case, posted on its Facebook page Wednesday night that a PayPal fund has been set up for people who would like to help raise money for the reward.
“The response across the country to this horrific situation has restored our faith in humanity and given Dumas volunteers the strength to keeping fighting to find the perpetrators,” the group wrote in its post. “… If no arrest is made in 6 months the reward fund will be used to help other strip mine horses in need. We provide hay and salt all winter long to abandoned mine horses.”
The Kentucky Humane Society said in a statement that donors have helped contribute $2,500 to reward.
“The Kentucky Humane Society Equine CARE Program rescues, assists and advocates for horses in Eastern Kentucky, and we are sickened and outraged about what has happened,” said KHS President and CEO Lori Redmon.
Redmon told The Courier Journal on Friday that she has worked in the animal welfare field for 29 years and seen “a lot of neglect and abuse,” including many “unintentional” cases of harm.
“But this was intentional,” Redmon said of the horses. “Just the magnitude of it and where they were was so remote, (so) whoever did it had to be prepared to go up there with ATVs and guns and shoot them … It’s senseless. That’s what makes it so heinous and one that sticks in your mind.”
Redmon added that KHS is currently focused on contributing to the reward “because there is a pretty strong feeling that someone out there knows something.”
In October, the humane society took in an “extremely emaciated horse” from the same herd that was attacked this week.
“Willow, as KHS named her, is recovering at Willow Hope Farm in Simpsonville, KHS’ new equine farm,” the state humane society said. “The farm was named in her honor.”
The Humane Society of the United States said it is offering up to $5,000 for “information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible” for the deaths of the horses.
“It takes a truly heinous person to mercilessly shoot more than a dozen horses and leave them for dead,” said Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “We hope this reward will encourage anyone with information about this terrible crime to come forward.”
The Animal Legal Defense Fund, a California-based legal advocacy organizaiton for animals, said it is offering a $5,000 reward.
The advocacy group noted that it is a Class A misdemeanor in Kentucky to intentionally kill an animal, with a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison and a $500 fine.
Dumas Rescue also posted an update Thursday that said a veterinarian who performed a field necropsy confirmed that gunshots officially caused the death of the horses.
Anyone with information about the fatal incident is asked to contact the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office at 606-886-6171.
Unclaimed horses have been spotted on or near mines in the coalfields of Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains for years.
Redmon, the Kentucky Humane Society president, told The Courier Journal in 2015 that her group had counted the year earlier nearly 440 free-roaming horses in several southeast Kentucky counties but that foraging and other patterns suggested the number was three times as many.
“I’d say within a five-county area, we’re talking thousands,” Redmon said in 2015.
On Friday, Redmon said “nothing has changed in terms of the estimated population up there.”
The practice of grazing horses on “strip jobs” — former coal mines, some flattened by mountaintop removal — has been going on for years in a mountainous area where homes can cling to hillsides or sit in narrow valleys, officials say.
According to the Kentucky Humane Society, it started becoming a bigger problem after the recession began in 2008, which led to more owners struggling to provide necessary care and instead leaving their horses unattended or dumping them on the reclaimed mining sites.
As wild breeding increased, so did the population along with numerous problems.
“In some areas, grazing was non-existent. So you had horses coming off in droves, walking into roadways and getting hit and killed,” Tonya Conn with Dumas Rescue told The Courier Journal in 2015. “Horses were starving; they’re coming into rural areas and destroying yards, eating paint off of cars” because of the road-salt that was on them.
To tackle the problem of roaming horses on mining sites, the Kentucky Humane Society focused initially in 2015 on areas like Knott, Floyd and Breathitt counties, offering services such as vaccines and gelding in hopes of finding wild horses a new owner.
In April 2015, then-Gov. Steve Beshear also signed into law a bill that reduced the time required to hold a stray horse before it can be adopted from 90 to 10 days.
The legislation was supported by an array of animal welfare groups and meant to encourage cash-strapped rural Kentucky counties to take in more stray horses.
Redmon said Friday that the legislation has helped, but it is still challenging for animal welfare officials to give lawmakers an accurate estimate of how many free-roaming horses are out there.
Sharing accurate data with legislators in Frankfort is vital when requesting more funding to tackle the issue and reduce the number of stray horses roaming by mines, she noted.