A Beaverdam resident is claiming four of his horses are dead after three separate shooting incidents in the last six months.
Horse owner Glen Hassen alleges his horses have been lured out more than once with feed and shot in broad daylight.
He said incidents have been ongoing since February, although the shootings were not reported until it happened again on March 17 and again on June 28, when a horse was tied to a tree and shot several times in the head.
Hassen said six horses have been shot in three different incidents.
Veterinarian Greg Benoit confirmed the past two shootings, saying he saw the results of the shootings first-hand at Hassen's property.
“Definitely, horses have been shot out there. I've taken as many bullet fragments as I can out of the one horse (Skip) surgically,” he said. That horse was shot on two occasions before being killed.
“(On March 17), we pulled a bullet out of his flank and bullet fragments out of his sinuses where he had been shot in the head. He was recovering really well from surgery (and) there probably wouldn't have been any longstanding complications or issues.”
Hassen said March 17 was a horrific day, having one of his horses shot dead and the other alive with bullets in its head.
“The condition of the horse brought tears to my eyes. An eye was hanging out and ear was flopped over. It took us over an hour to catch the horse,” said Hassen. “We got him back and it was thousands of dollars worth of medication and the surgeries, I don't even know how much it cost us in surgeries on the horse. We had just got the horse back into good spirits with the other ones (when he was shot dead).”
Skip was shot again and killed on June 28, and Benoit was once again called out to the scene.
Benoit said the RCMP was also there “to inspect” the situation. Hassen said two different RCMP officers were at his residence regarding horse shootings on two different dates.
Cold Lake RCMP was not available for a comment. MD of Bonnyville peace officers were also notified of the case, according to Chris Garner, director of public safety.
“Shooting horses is a criminal offence, so we passed it directly on to the RCMP,” Garner said. “We are the ones who told (Glen) to call the RCMP. …We wouldn't have progressed with the investigation.”
“Our involvement was the extent of looking for any suspicious vehicles or people parked on the side of the road or people that don't fit in around there and just checking to see what they're doing there,” he said. “That's just based off the complaint that he's had horses shot and seen suspicious vehicles around his area that he hasn't seen before.”
Benoit said when he went to Hassen's farm on June 28, he was disturbed by the death of Skip.
“I went out and did a post-mortem on him a couple months later after the initial shooting and it appeared that he was tied up to a tree and shot,” he said.
“There were marks from where he was tied and he was dead right there. There were marks around the tree from the halter and a number of gunshot wounds and bullets in his head. We did x-rays on the skull and it was full of lead.”
Hassen said he was quite disturbed by the incident not only because he had lost one of his most valuable horses but also because his son was out grooming Skip at 3:30 p.m. and sometime between then and 5 p.m. when Hassen got home, the horse was shot dead.
“We found a pail with the one in the bush beside it with grain in it. So it was obvious what happened.” Hassen said the pail and grain was taken from within his own barn.
Hassen said with the death of four horses, he has been hit both “emotionally” and “financially.”
“Something like this is so disturbing. Can you imagine a person doing this to an animal? To me, this was a plan to do it. The person has got to be awful sick in his (or her) mind to do that,” Hassen said. And Benoit agreed.
“It's just a pretty disgusting thing to happen,” said Benoit. “The big thing is, it's not like it was just one shot. This last time he was shot three or four times. Somebody is doing it with the intent to kill. It's not just going out and having an accident.”
