AR-News: (US-NY)Deer Crushed As Onlookers Watch In Horror Upstate

[Ronda Roaring]

Deer Crushed As Onlookers Watch In Horror Upstate
POSTED: 11:29 am EDT April 28, 2004
UPDATED: 11:36 am EDT April 28, 2004


AURORA, N.Y. -- It was a gruesome sight, even for an avid hunter like Lynn Franz. 

An injured deer lay in the road of this Buffalo suburb, its legs crushed after being hit by a car. Then along comes a high-lift from the town's highway garage, crushing the animal in front of horrified onlookers who assumed the machine was coming to bring the animal to safety. 

"He ran over the middle of her body," said Franz, recalling the incident she witnessed earlier this month. "(The deer) began thrashing all around and then he scooped her up and took her away. That was just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong." 

Now, an animal rights group wants an investigation. 

"We shouldn't crush deer like bags of garbage," said Valerie Will, humane educator and former head of the Animal Advocates of Western New York. "If the deer kept raising its head at cars, imagine what it felt when it saw a high-lift coming at it?" 

Aurora Supervisor Terence M. Yarnall called the incident inadvertent and apologized. 

"That was not an intentional act," Yarnall said. "(He) did everything he could to get the deer scooped up. I'm sorry people witnessed it." 

Animal Advocates, however, wants a probe into the incident. The group also is calling on town employees and police to be better educated about using more humane solutions whenever possible, including having wildlife rehabilitators dispatched to similar scenes in the future. 

"It's too late for this deer," said Will. "But we'd like to see a protocol set up so it doesn't happen again." 
© 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 


The above article appeared in the Buffalo News. Letters to the editor should go to that paper.



		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040429/48e9c2bf/attachment.html